Haunting Insanity
by GSRsara4eva1623
Summary: After a myth is twisted from a recently solved case, the ghost seems to follow two of the CSI team members home. GSR. Short summary, I know, but I don't want to give anything away.
1. Prologue

Title: Haunting Insanity

Disclaimer: I don't own anything. But I can dream, right?

Pairings: GSR

Rating: Right now, this is rated T, but that could change. Probably won't, but anything is possible.

A/N: This is only my second time posting a story on here, so I'm sort of new to this. This is not beta'd, so all mistakes are mine (hopefully there aren't many). This story can take place in between season 6 and season 7... I'm busy now with school, but I had this idea and just had to do something with it. Reviews are greatly appreciated!

The room seemed to suddenly drop in temperature, but neither of the bed's occupants appeared to notice it. The opened window could have fit for an explanation, but here in Vegas, it was pushing 90 degrees. The sudden clap of thunder might have explained why she jolted awake and upright, but they both knew that wasn't the reason. She was shivering even buried under the covers. Placing a shaking hand on his shoulder she desperately tried to shake him awake, "Gil… Gil, please wake up. Please...," she pleaded with his sleeping form. Grissom placed his hand over hers and turned over to face her. The fear gleaming in her eyes quickly rid his mind of the sleep- induced haze. Grissom sat up, and moved closer to her on the bed. He wrapped his arms around her and she fell into his embrace. She was trembling and whimpering slightly, trying to hold back the tears that were blurring her vision.

Rubbing his hand up and down her arm he spoke gently, trying to soothe her, "Shhh… Sara, its okay… Calm down. You're safe now, it was only a dream." But she didn't believe that. Her breathing was fast and irregular, she wasn't calming down. "Sara, you need to take a deep breath." Without realizing, she complied. "You have to let it out too," Grissom said after a few seconds where she didn't see to breath. She did as told again, but her vision distorted as she started to black out. As Grissom instructed her to take another breath, she suddenly couldn't breath. Her eyes fell closed as Grissom grabbed the phone from the nightstand. Quickly, he dialed nine-one-one.

Last night when Sara was on the verge of a panic attack, she was able to focus on what he was saying, and stop it before she would've blacked out. But this time was different. And it was all because of a case…

A/N: You see that little button down there? Click it and see what happens! Please Review


	2. Assignments

** Disclaimer:** Don't own them (but wish I did). Anything that seems familiar to you, yeah, I don't own that either!

** A/N:** Thank you so much for the review. And thank you to those of you who added me to your story alerts!! )

Lets get on with the story!

**51 hours earlier (10 pm)…**

The team was gathered in the break room; minus Grissom, who was yet to arrive. Warrick and Nick were playing videogames, and Greg was constantly asking if he could play the winner.

"Greg, are you sure you're good enough. I mean, wouldn't you rather play loser," Warrick stated, glancing from the tv screen to Greg, but then quickly back.

"Come on… Just let me play," Greg complained. Their bickering continued.

Catherine and Sara were sat at the break room table, across from each other. Catherine was putting the finishing touches on her makeup, while Sara finished writing down their notes in the case file, from last night's murder-suicide.

Greg pulled the cord from the play station, receiving two death glares in return.

"You are so not playing now, little man," Warrick told Greg. He looked like he was ready to tackle him.

"I was winning too," Nick said, disappointedly.

"Yeah, a once in a life-time event right down the drain," Warrick stated. Sara closed the case file in front of her just as Grissom entered the room.

"Good, you guys are done with your game," Grissom said while looking at the papers in his hands, totally oblivious to the play station incidence. Warrick and Nick just glared at Greg.

"Okay, so it's a slow night: one case, two bodies, big surrounding area. Nick and Warrick, you'll get the decomp-" Nick cut him off.

"What? Why do we get the decomp? What are you punishing us for?" Nick protested.

"Nick. Sara and I took the decomp last time, and the time before that, Catherine was stuck with it," Grissom watched as Nick leaned back into his chair and grumbled to himself. "Catherine, you and Greg will work the perimeter. Sara and I will work the other body." Catherine nodded her head in agreement, and everyone stood to leave the break room. Grissom handed Catherine and Nick a slip of paper with the address of the scene scrawled on it: which meant, they were all taking separate cars, well, at least with whom they were assigned to work with. Grabbing their kits, they were off to the crime scene.

Grissom briefed Sara on the case:

"Two bodies were found by some teenagers at an abandoned state mental hospital," Grissom watched as she cringed slightly. "The place has been out of use for thirty years or so. The kids wanted to see if the legend was true, and as they were touring the building they stumbled upon two bodies. One has been there for awhile." Grissom glanced over at Sara, "Are you going to be okay with this case?"

"Yeah, fine. It's not exactly the place that gets to me… it's the crazy people," she stated simply.

"Okay," Grissom said turning his gaze back to the road ahead, relieved she would be all right.

"So, what's the legend about?" Sara asked, interested as to what these kids were so curious about.

**A/N:** Please Review! Reviews make my day!!


	3. Creaks

**Disclaimer:** No, sadly, I still don't own them (or anything else familiar to you)

**A/N:** Thanks to those of you who have added my story to your alerts list, and thanks to Sara lover554 for adding me to your favorite authors list! This story is not beta'd, all mistakes are my own.

"So, what's the legend about?" Sara asked, interested as to what these kids were so curious about.

"Well, a nurse that used to work at the hospital was stabbed to death by one of the patients a number of years ago. And the local teenagers pass around the story, that if you find the patients room, where she was murdered, you can still hear her screams. But as if that isn't ridiculous enough, blood will appear on the walls, writing out threats of what could happen if you don't leave… Personally, I don't believe it," Grissom stated, again glancing over at Sara.

"Yeah, but a few teenagers who have nothing better to do on a Friday evening, will test even the stupidest of rumors, and the rain tonight would just make it creeper," Sara replied. The rest of the drive to the scene was spent in silence, except for the continuous slap of the windshield wipers and the rain pelting the car.

After a long forty-five minutes of quiet, they finally pulled up at the neglected building. Grissom and Sara were the last to arrive at the scene. Besides the red and blue flashing lights, the place obviously showed it's non-existence to the world around it. If the grass wasn't already dried up and dead, it reached a foot high, weeds included. Any pavement that used to be there was crumbled and covered with debris now. Grissom and Sara got their kits from the car, and headed over to meet the rest of the team, where Brass was standing.

"So, what do we know?" Catherine asked, the first to speak up, while everyone was huddled together in the rain.

Brass started to explain, "Five teenage boys were wandering around the building, they had ignored the 'do not enter' signs plastered over the entrance ways. On the second floor, they split up. One group stumbled upon the decomp, and then the other two found the more recent one. Rushing to find each other, they didn't think to call the police until they were running half way down the block. And now we're here."

"Did they touch anything?" Grissom asked.

"They claim they never touched the bodies or anything else in the rooms. But for the rest of the place: they can't be specific, too freaked out," Brass replied. Grissom turned to his team.

"Okay, Catherine, Greg, start working on the first floor, and then to the third. For now the rest of us will work the second floor… And Catherine, lift footprints from any possible entrance way and from anywhere that would give someone access to the inside of the building: fingerprints too." Everyone went their separate ways after pulling on a pair of latex gloves; Brass stayed with the teenagers so he could interview them again, hoping for more details.

**50 hours earlier (11 pm)…**

The tiled floor, or at least what was left of it, creaked under their feet. The decomposed body was in the second room to left, where Nick and Warrick had gone. Sara and Grissom were making their way down the hallway. It was surprising that the rain wasn't making its way through the roof. The walls were coated with cracks and looked ready to crumple at the slightest hint of pressure. Sections of the wall still had the chipped old green paint, but most of it was gone. The rooms they passed had doors hanging loosely on hinges, if the door was actually still there. The only light came from the moon through the shattered window at the end of the hall, and their flashlights scanning the floor. As the creaking echoed in the narrow hallways, it gave the eerie feeling that something, or someone, was following them. Sara couldn't help but turn around, but there was nothing there.

Finally making their way to the last room on the right, they didn't need to open a door, Sara and Grissom spotted the more recently dead body, lying face down on the center of the floor. Shining their only light source around, they began to look for evidence.

**A/N:** Please Review! Even if it's to tell me that it sucks (just please be nice, okay?). I would like to know who is actually following through with this story...


	4. Shadows

**Disclaimer: **No, pretty sure I don't own. No, I definitely don't.

**A/N: **I was recently informed that my story was similar to the movie "House on Haunted Hill," if anyone else has noticed similarities, I would just like to inform you that I have never seen the movie. So I didn't get any ideas from there... Sorry that this chapter is kind of short, but I didn't get much of a chance to write today during school, then I was busy with homework, studying, and the dentist (ugh!) after school. There will be another chapter tomorrow (hopefully longer!). Thanks again for the reviews and to those of you that have added this story to your alert list.

**49 hours earlier (12 am)…**

"The five teenagers were all boys, right?" Sara asked. Grissom looked up from the blood he was examining,

"Yes."

"Did he mention if any of them had long blonde hair?"

"He didn't say, but our victim had long brown hair."

"So it's safe to assume that the hair belongs to the killer, because the boys didn't enter the rooms?" Sara asked.

"We'll just have to check with Brass to make sure," Grissom replied. Sara examined the hairs.

"We've got skin tags," Sara stated, picking up the blonde strands with tweezers and placing them into an evidence bag.

"Well, that's always a plus," Grissom said, as he took a sample of the blood pool near the female victim's head. Processing the scene continued…

"Did David arrive yet to take the bodies?" Sara asked.

Grissom shook his head, "Brass hasn't called me, but I'll check with Nick and Warrick, then I'll go see how Catherine and Greg are doing." Grissom closed and locked his kit, leaving it there, and then headed down the hallway to where Nick and Warrick were still processing.

Alone in the room, the rain seemed louder now, in the silence that surrounded her. A quick spark of lightening lit up the room, casting shadows on the walls. She should've expected it, but the thunder made her jump. Fumbling around with the flashlight, she could've sworn something moved in the corner of the room, but passed it off that her eyes were still adjusting from the flash of light earlier. Whatever it was had her on edge.

Looking over the body for any evidence Grissom could've missed, which wasn't likely, Sara tried to concentrate, but found her mind drifting to what could be lurking in the shadows…

**A/N: **Please Review!! You know you want to!!


	5. Threats

**Disclaimer: **Do I own them? Ummm, let me go ask my mom... no, she doesn't remember writing out a check.

**A/N: **Okay, again I'm sorry this is a tad on the short side. But I had a test to study for, in homeroom we had to read, and then I was dragged to my parents' mortgage meeting (or something like that). So now, since it's the weekend, I'm not making any promises, but the next chapters or so should be longer (I have nothing to do on weekends (sigh)...). Thank you so much for the reviews, you do not know how much I appreciate them!! And thankz again to those of you who have added my story to your alert/favorites list.

After ten minutes passed, Sara was just finishing up the room. If David didn't arrive soon, they could be stuck here waiting for him, instead of starting to go through the evidence back at the lab.

Sara was taking a few last pictures of the scene when she found another hair and some blood, in the corner of the room. She bagged the hair, and swabbed the blood. With blood found all over the room near the body, there had not been a reason to use the luminol on the walls, or anywhere else: but now there was.

Taking the luminol bottle from her kit, and turning off her flashlight, Sara started to spray the wall near where the hair and blood were found, the furthest wall from the body, maybe an unrelated event. It took a few seconds, but the wall started to fluoresce blue. Backing up to check the spatter pattern, she was alarmed and fear stricken by what she saw: the blood was formed into letters, the letters were formed into words, and the words formed into threats. Suddenly, she remembered what Grissom had said about the legend, in the car coming here. She swabbed each glowing letter, then moved onto the other three walls, repeating the process: luminol, stepping back, swabbing.

Her eyes traveled on the wall, reading each threat, landing on "I'm watching you."

She jumped around at the hand placed on her shoulder, as the letters started to fade away. Letting out a sigh full of relief and fear, she was glad to see that it was just Grissom.

"Sara, honey. Are you okay, you're shaking," it was more of a statement than a question. He placed his hands on her upper arms, hoping to calm her.

"I'm fine," she said gulping back the lump of fear that was sticking in her throat. The panic lighting up her eyes told him otherwise. But she didn't give him a chance to ask, "So, did David arrive yet?" He took his hands from her arms,

"No, but he should be here soon. Did you find anything?"

"Actually, yeah, come look at this…" Sara led Grissom to one of the walls and started to spray it with luminol.

**47 hours earlier (2 am)… **

It turns out; David was half an hour late anyway. Finally arriving back at the lab: Greg was running the blood and hairs for DNA comparison, Sara was going through the few other pieces of possible evidence they had, Grissom was analyzing the blood-written threats, Catherine was dropping off a few fingerprints that would need the help of AFIS to find their match, Warrick was going over the two footprints they collected, and Nick was in the morgue getting evidence off of the victims…

A/N: Reviews are always a nice thing to see in my inbox...


	6. Results

**Disclaimer: **Nothing changed: I still don't own them...

**A/N: **Thank you so much for the reviews, I really like to hear from you guys! Okay, the first paragraph is repeated from the previous chapter: I did that just to keep the time line in-order. Enjoy!

**47 hours earlier (2 am)… **

It turns out; David was half an hour late anyway. Finally arriving back at the lab: Greg was running the blood and hairs for DNA comparison, Sara was going through the few other pieces of possible evidence, Grissom was analyzing the blood-written threats, Catherine was dropping off a few fingerprints that would need the help of AFIS to find their match, Warrick was going over the two footprints they collected, and Nick was in the morgue getting evidence off of the victims.

Even though the second body had decomposed some, Dr. Al Robbins was still able to do a complete autopsy. Nick pushed through the double doors to the morgue, making his way to stand across from Robbins, over the autopsy table.

"So Doc, what'cha find?" Nick asked, with his Texan accent.

"Well, I finished the autopsy on the decomposed body. And I was just about to begin on this one," Al said, gesturing to the body taking up the space on the table.

"I'll stay and watch," Nick said, grabbing a blue scrub and covering his clothes.

Robbins explained what he found with the decomp, as he started the autopsy on the body in front of him, "Well, COD for your John Doe was a fatal stab wound to the chest, two more wounds occurred after the fatal one. TOD was about three weeks ago… Nothing really popped out at me. I have dental x-rays for you; he was a bit too decomposed for fingerprints." He grabbed the file and handed it to Nick; along with a small evidence bag that contained another blonde hair. Pointing to the hair, Robbins said, "Found that on the victim… I also have what's left of his clothes; they're by the other autopsy table.

Nick flipped through the file, "Give me a call when you're done with this one." Nick grabbed the bagged clothes, and left the morgue to pass along the dental x-rays.

Sara had been in the layout room for half an hour now. It was hard to tell what was evidence and what was just meaningless trash; most of it not amounting to anything. Nick walked in with the bag of clothes.

"Any luck?" he asked, placing the bag on the table, and with gloved hands, emptying its contents.

"Nothing. What did Dr. Robbins have to say for the autopsy?" Sara asked, spreading out the clothes.

"He didn't find much, just that the fatal knife wound to the chest of our decomp, was followed by two more stab wounds, and TOD was about three weeks ago. The dental x-rays are being worked on now, to hopefully identify the vic."

"Do you mind if I leave you with this to check with Greg about the blonde hairs?" Sara asked, standing from her seat at the layout table.

"Go ahead. Oh, can you drop this off for me?" Nick asked holding up the small evidence bag, "Blonde hair Al found on our John Doe."

She took the bag from Nick's hand and left the room.

"Hey Greg, anything match the hairs we found?" Sara asked, entering the DNA lab.

"Not yet, it's still looking for possible matches," Greg said, looking back over at the computer screen.

"Could you find out if this is from the same source?" Sara asked, handing him the blonde hair.

"Sure, that'll go faster."

"Thanks, page me when the results are in…" Sara said, leaving the room to find out if Warrick got anywhere with the footprints, but first, dropping in on Grissom.

She found him in the break room: coffee in one hand, file in the other. Sara poured herself a cup, and sat down across from him.

"So, is there any secret meaning to those?" she said, referring to the threats.

"Not that I've found," he said, looking up from the files. "What did Al have to say?"

"Nothing really, TOD was around three weeks ago, and after the fatal wound was inflicted on our John Doe decomp, two more knife wounds to the chest occurred."

"Significance?" Grissom asked.

"Not sure yet." Putting her folded arms on the table, she lowered her voice a bit, "Grissom, do you think we should look into that legend, a little?"

"I guess it wouldn't hurt," he replied, directing his attention back to the papers in front of him.

**A/N: **Please Review! They make me happy!


	7. Unfound Evidence

**Disclaimer: **If you think I own them, I wish I lived in your dream...

**A/N: **Thanks to everyone for the reviews!! And thank you to anyone and everyone who has added me or my story to your favorites list!! Here's some more for your enjoyment...

**46 hours earlier (3 am)…**

Nick's pager went off as he rounded the corner to the morgue. Looking down, the object told him that the second autopsy was finished.

"You got here fast…" Dr. Robbins said, as Nick entered the morgue for the second time in two hours.

"Well, I was headed over here when I got your message," Nick said, again meeting Robbins over a sheet covered body on one of the many steel autopsy tables.

"Meet Jennifer Conrolie," Robbins said, handing Nick the girl's ID. "Her learner's permit was in her pocket."

"She was only sixteen, her birthday in less than three weeks," Nick said, reading the card. "So, what can you tell me about her?"

"COD was the same as the other, fatal knife wound to the chest, followed by two more stab wounds. Her TOD was about 34 hours ago… Her clothes are bagged, along with her phone and what looks to be her house keys. I already sent out the ten-card, just to confirm identity… I also got the results from the boy's dental x-rays," Robbins said, picking up a file. "His name is Seth Rinchi, he was 14," Dr. Robbins said, passing the file and the girl's clothes to Nick.

"Thanks. If you find out anything else, page me," Nick said, leaving the morgue to process the clothes.

Sara was in the icebox they called the evidence storage room, dressed for winter, hoping to find the case file and evidence from the Julia Fechyrna case, the nurse who was killed at the South Park Nevada State Mental Hospital. She had searched the lab's database for the case number, and found it to be #25403. But now, in the evidence storage room, she wasn't having any luck finding the box in the cold case section. Grissom had told her that she might not find it, the murder had happened well over twenty years ago; back then the case records weren't always in the computer and evidence wasn't kept track of as much as it was now.

Twenty minutes of searching in the cold storage room and all she had to show for it were her blue lips and numb fingers. Disappointment obvious on her face, she made her way to Grissom's office, returning her coat to her locker.

"Grissom the evidence wasn't there," she said, entering his office after a muffled 'come in' and defeatedly plopping down in a chair in front of his desk. "I want to talk to the boys that found the bodies."

"I'll ask Brass if he can bring them in right before shift ends. I'm sure it won't be a problem," Grissom said.

"Thanks," Sara said, her pager went off. "Gotta go, Greg has something on the blonde hairs," she said, standing from her seat and leaving the room.

**A/N: **Please Review! They'll be nice to read on an early Monday morning...


	8. XX

**Disclaimer: **I do not own CSI, or anything else that may seem familiar to you.

**A/N: **I'm surprised this got done tonight. But my mom is ready to kick me off the computer. And I have to go study for a math test. Thank you to everyone and anyone who is reading this, especially my reviewers! So... Enjoy!!

**45 hours earlier (4 am)…**

"Do we have a match?" Sara asked, entering the glass walls of the DNA lab.

"Yes and no… The lone blonde one you gave me matched the others. But I'm still running them through the database. And I've also established that because the roots are still attached to the hairs-"

"Means they were yanked or pulled out," Sara continued for him. "Does that get us anywhere?"

"Well, the hairs are XX…"

"Female."

"So our killer is a girl?"

"Not necessarily Greg. Teenagers hung around the deserted building all the time."

"Yeah, but wasn't one found on the body?"

"Yes, but it could be from someone who just didn't report it, because they were afraid they would be blamed for murder… Thanks Greg, I'll pass it on. Right now, I have to go see Warrick about some footprints," Sara said, leaving Greg to stare at his computer screen, still hoping for a DNA match to the blonde hairs…

"Where did you guys find the footprints?" Sara said, approaching Warrick in the layout room. He was going through piles and piles of lists of shoe sales.

"Catherine got two nice molds from the dirt beneath one of the windows. But it could be meaningless, it's not like they were actually found near the body."

"Yeah, that's true," she said, lifting up a picture of the shoe print in dirt, before it was molded. "Were the prints made by the same shoe, or were they two separate people?"

"The same. A running shoe made by Nike, men's size 12. There are at least two-thousand names here," he said, referring to the shoe sales list. "We should just search for a particular name, not go through the whole list; it probably wouldn't get us anywhere anyway."

"Okay, and once we get a suspect we can just look their name up. Hopefully, when we need it, that'll help us get a warrant for anything else, so we can solve this case."

**44 hours (5 am)…**

"Hey Jim, it's Gil," Grissom said, after the third ring, once Brass picked up.

"Hey. What do you need?"

"Sara wanted to interview the teenagers who found the bodies."

"Sure, not a problem, I'm still with them now."

"Still?"

"Well, their parents are cooperating, they don't exactly want their son accused of murder, so why not be compliant… I'll have them down at the station an hour before shift ends, that good?"

"Yeah sure. I'll let Sara know," Grissom hung up and pushed speed dial five on his phone.

"Sidle."

"It's Grissom. I called Brass; he said that the boy's parents were more than happy to cooperate with us. So Brass will bring them to the station an hour before shift ends."

"Okay, sounds good. Are you coming for the interviews too?"

"No, but take Greg with you."

"Sure… Speaking of Greg, he determined that the blonde hairs were pulled or yanked from someone's head, and they were-"

"XX, female."

"No one likes it when you do that. How'd you know?"

"Greg dropped by a few minutes earlier."

"I told him I'd pass it on… If you knew, why'd you keep letting me talk?"

"Because, I like to hear your voice…" he could see the smile break out across her face, even though they were on the phone.

"Did Warrick stop by too?" That quickly, they were back to acting professional.

"No. What did he find?"

"Footprints that were found outside, came from a man's Nike running shoe, size 12."

"Not near the body? It could be irrelevant."

"So could the hairs," she said, hanging up and ending the conversation.

**A/N:** Please Review! They are always nice to read...


	9. Coincidence

**Disclaimer:** Nope, still don't own them.

**A/N: **I really, really want to apologize for not updating yesterday, and for the shortness of this chapter. But I have been under the weather a bit lately (maybe b/c of the sudden change in weather/temperature. I think I'm getting better). So after seven-eight hours of suffering at school, I couldn't seem to concentrate. So, I'm sorry, but this is all I have.

**43 hours earlier (6 am)…**

The team was gathered in the layout room, where Warrick was previously working. Grissom had called a meeting, so they could discuss any evidence that they had, before the boys were to be interviewed.

"All but one of the prints were partials, and AFIS didn't accept them, but I got a match for one of them," Catherine said, pausing for dramatic effect.

"Who did it match?" Nick asked impatiently.

"Richard Fechyrna," Catherine said proudly. "Julia Fechyrna's son."

"Why was he in the database?" Sara asked, intrigued by where this was headed.

"He works at the Tangiers."

"Any charges on his record?" Warrick asked.

Catherine scanned over the papers, "He was pulled over for a DUI, few years back."

"That's it?" Greg asked surprised.

"Yeah. Nothing else."

"I'll have Brass bring him in," Grissom stated. "Probably tomorrow at the beginning of shift…"

Once everyone was caught up with everyone else's evidence, Greg and Sara left for the interviews.

**A/N:** Please Review! They cheer me up!!


	10. Recalling Events

**Disclaimer: **No, don't own them, but I do like to borrow them and take them for rides in my crazy brain.

**A/N: **I am feeling much better than I was yesterday (thank god). I hope this makes up for the short chapter I posted yesterday, and for not posting one on Tuesday. Hope you like it!!

**42 hours earlier (7am)…**

Greg and Sara were in the interrogation room. The five boys- Jeffery McKiney, Trevor Defroy, Kevin Sunchet, Matthew Pescotti, and Timothy Kuebler- all sat around the table, making it look more like a circle than a rectangle. Sara was seated across from them, with the case file set in front of her. Greg held back a bit, leaning up against the wall next to the one-way glass, where Brass was watching from the other side.

The boys were surprisingly calm, well, most of them at least. The dirty blonde, straw haired boy, Timothy, was squirming a bit in his seat. Sara took notice of this, and then started the interview.

"Okay, walk us through your night," Sara said, glancing at each of them for a few seconds. The boys were silent for a moment, but then seemed to be having a conversation with their eyes, deciding on who should speak. Trevor, the redhead of the group, spoke up after one more, quick glance to the guys around him.

"Well, we walked to the abandoned crazy place," nobody noticed Sara wince at the boy's choice of words.

"Around what time?" Greg spoke up from his dark corner.

"About nine, give or take half an hour… So we get there, and the wood blocking the entrance way, wasn't much of a blockade anymore, so we just walked through the front entrance… Ummmm, we toured the first floor a bit, but there wasn't much to be seen. So we looked for the stairs," pause. "We climbed two flights of stairs, leading us to the door to the second floor. It squeaked loudly as we pushed it open, it stayed propped open by itself as we went down the hallway… Half way down, oh, and I'm sure we were the only ones there," he added in. "I turned around to split us into two groups so we could go down the two hallways. We were maybe 40 feet from the stairway door, and I saw this black figure walk by… followed by the stairwell door slamming shut seconds later," he spoke as if telling a scary story to frightened children. "I was stunned silent, and everyone else spun around to see what happened, but there was nothing there, and the door then stood hanging closed," pause. "We knew we were alone in that hospital, but there was this feeling we got every time we turned a corner, like something was just going to jump out at you. Every five seconds we would turn around to see if we were being followed," pause. "Once we left that hallway, we split into groups to tour the other rooms."

"Who was in each group?" Sara asked.

Matthew spoke up, lifting his gaze from his twirled shoe laces to Sara, "Me and Tim went together, and Jeff, Trevor, and Kevin were together… Tim and I went down to the end of the hall. There was some kind of, like, unnatural chill coming from a room. When Tim and I went to investigate, we saw the body, and a black figured slouched next to it. It seemed to be examining the dead girl. I took a step closer to see the person better, and it just faded away into thin air. I asked Tim if he saw it and when he nodded, we ran to get the others."

Jeff picked up the storyline, "Kevin, Trevor, and I were just about to enter another room, when we heard the door slam behind us. We left the room we were looking into and threw opened the door to the other room. That's when we saw the body laying on the

floor. Then we heard Tim and Matthew screaming to us down the hall that there was something in a room. We nodded our heads to them, and then ran out of the building the same way we came," pause. "It wasn't until we were halfway home that we decided to call nine-one-one. We were too freaked out."

"What do you guys know about the legend or myth going around about the hospital?" Sara asked.

Kevin spoke up, "Just that some nurse-lady was killed there by a psychotic patient years back, then the hospital was abandoned partially because of strange occurrences. And it's supposed to be that if you go to the room where she was killed, her ghost will personally threaten you, and if you really upset her, she'll show herself and threaten to stab you to death the same way she was… That was our goal when we went to check out the haunted mental hospital, just to be frightened if the myth was true." Tim still seemed to be on edge, out of the conversation.

"Okay, thank you for going through that. If we need any more information, we'll contact you," Sara said, wanting to talk with just Timothy.

"Are we in any trouble?" Matthew asked.

"Normally, you would've been charged with trespassing, but you guys probably won't be accused of anything. Just check with Captain Jim Brass on your way out," Sara said. The boys stood, and filed out of the room.

"Timothy, would you mind staying behind a few minutes and answering some more questions?" Sara asked.

"I thought we were done?"

"Well, I just want to ask you a few more questions."  
"Let me just tell my mom, she's in the waiting room," Tim said.

"I'll go with him," Greg said.

**A/N:** Please Review! It's wonderful to know if people are reading and liking my story.


	11. A Witness

**Disclaimer:** Don't own them.

**A/N:** Thankz so much to all of you out there reading and reviewing!

**41 hours earlier (8 am)…**

Set up again, on opposite sides of the table, Greg was prepared to interview the boy this time. Unsure of what to ask first, he simply said, "Had you been to the abandoned hospital before?"

They boy took a moment to answer, "Yes."

"Recently?"

Again, a simple answer, "Yes."

"Within the past month?"

"Yes." Greg felt like he was playing a pointless game of twenty questions,

"Within the past week?"  
"Yes."

"When and who did you go with?"

"My girlfriend, the day before I went with the guys."

"Does your girlfriend's name happen to be Jennifer Conrolie?" Greg asked. Timothy gulped back the lump settling in his throat.

"Yes."

"Do you know what happened to her?"

Timothy hesitated at first, but nodded his head.

"Mind explaining it to us?" Greg asked, urging the kid on.

"Jen and I were bored; neither of us had ever been to the abandoned building before, so we figured we'd go check it," pause. "We had split up to look around… We never should have done that… There was a noise from down the hall, I though it was an animal or something. Just as I turned around to see what it was, I saw a man rounding the corner; I didn't think much of it, could've been anything. I ran to go check on Jen," pause . "Once I got to the room, I saw her lying on the floor, not moving. But the blood around her was still, and there wasn't any gushing out of her. I didn't touch anything but her throat when I checked for a pulse. When there was none, I got the hell out of there. I didn't want to be linked to a murder."

"Do you think you could describe the man you saw to our sketch artist?"

"I only saw half his face, and it wasn't exactly the best lighting, but if it will help my Jenny, I guess I could try."

Greg glanced at Captain Brass through the one-way glass, signaling that the interview was over. A few seconds later, Brass came through the door.

"Tim, I'll take you to the sketch artist now, so it will be over with." Tim got up, and followed Brass out the door.

"Do you believe him?" Sara asked Greg.

"He didn't seem too upset over what happened. But what are the odds that two bodies are found in the same place, killed the same way."

"Greg, we're not supposed to play the odds."

"Sara, you've been spending too much time with Grissom." A quick smile to Greg, and they were leaving, shift had ended half an hour ago anyway.

Sara retrieved her stuff from the locker room, and went to see if Grissom would be leaving now too.

"Hey, Griss'" Sara said, leaning against the doorframe to the office. "Are you heading out?"

"In about half an hour, I just have some paperwork to finish up."  
"That stuff is never finished, is it?"

"No, and at the rate I complete it, it never will be. I'll see you at the townhouse?"

"Yeah, call me when you leave here," Sara left his office and headed out to her car.

**A/N:** Please Review! I love to read them!


	12. Spooked

**Disclaimer: **Still don't own them.

**A/N: **I wasn't to sure about parts of this chapter, so I hope it pleases. Enjoy! I have to go watch a CSI marathon!

**40 hours earlier (9 am)… **

"Sidle," Sara answered, just coming out of the shower.

"I'm just leaving now," Grissom said, exiting his office.

"Any luck on the paperwork?" she asked, as she stood in her bedroom, towel drying her hair.

"I only worked on what Ecklie insisted he needed done today… So I'll see you at my place?"

"Yup, I'll leave in a few minutes," Sara said, and she hung up her phone. Quickly, she threw on a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt.

She snatched up her keys and pocketbook from the table near the door and locked up her apartment. She hadn't bothered with a jacket, even though it was still raining, harder now. A little downpour couldn't hurt the parched Vegas soil, it would be refreshing. And, besides, she liked the rain, except when it came to driving in it.

Climbing into her car and starting the engine, she put the windshield wipers on as fast as they would go. The back and forth clicking annoyed her so she turned on the radio, as she pulled out of her parking space. The music was no use; the storm was interfering, only producing static as a result.

She eased the car to a stop at a red light. Reaching over to adjust the rearview mirror, her heart seemed to stop beating for a moment, as a silver lined black figure caught in the mirror's reflection. Color drained from her face, as she jumped around in her seat, only to be met by the emptiness of her car. Turning around again to face the road, she was informed by honking car horns that the light had turned green. Shaking herself from her daze, she pushed down the gas pedal, and she had to restrain herself from flooring it. Her hands gripped the steering wheel tighter in fear, her knuckles slowly turned white.

This time she didn't have an explanation for what she saw. Sara just wanted to get to Grissom's house as fast as possible, and get out of the car.

She had calmed some, during the rest of the drive there. Pulling up in front of his house, she didn't see his Denali parked in the driveway: he hadn't arrived yet. Parking her car, and heading to the front door, she took out her keys. Flipping through for the right one, she opened the door. She was comforted already by just being there. Turning to close the door, she put her stuff down, and slid off her shoes.

Walking into the living room, she settled down on the couch, flipping on the T.V. The townhouse was her's as much as it was his: she had clothes, makeup, and anything else she would need there. They always spent so much more time at his house; rarely at her apartment. Curling her legs underneath her, she rested her head on the arm of the couch. A few minutes later, and she was drifting off to sleep.

**A/N: **Please Review! Because it puts a goofy smile on my face!


	13. Goodnight

**Disclaimer:** Still the same as before. I don't own them, and I don't see it in my future.

**A/N:** This chapter is really just a filler, but for some reason, I really like it! I hope you enjoy it too! I apologize for its shortness.

**38 hours earlier (11 am)…**

Grissom climbed into his Denali, getting soaked with rain as he did so. Sara was going to be pissed; he was supposed to be home two hours ago. As he was locking up his office, Ecklie dumped him with a case, claiming day shift was short-handed (again). Two hours out at a crime scene, then dropping everything off to be processed, and he was finally leaving. At least he wouldn't have to worry about solving this case, days would have to piece it together eventually, and he was just needed while the scene was still fresh. Grissom hoped Sara had not waited up for him, she needed rest after a long shift following the overtime she had done the night before, and besides, he really didn't feel like being lectured for being late right now.

He pulled into the driveway of his townhouse, and spotted her car sitting out front. Getting out of his Denali, and going up the few steps that led to the door, he unlocked it. Quietly, he opened and closed the door so it wouldn't wake her if she was indeed asleep. Placing his stuff down next to her's on the side table by the door and sliding off his shoes, he noticed the T.V. in the living room was on, its volume hushed down. Looking over at the couch, he saw her curled up, her eyes closed. He let out a sigh of relief.

He went upstairs to the bedroom, and pulled back the covers on the bed. Walking back to the living room, careful not to disturb her, he lifted her into his arms to bring her to the bedroom; she had always been incredibly light weight. She curled closer to his chest and clung to him in her sleep, she looked so peaceful, he couldn't help but smile.

Gently placing her down on the bed, he moved a strand of brown hair from her face, and tucked it behind her ear. He pulled up the comforter, tucking her in. Even when it was hot out in Vegas, she always insisted on using the comforter, she had told him that she liked to snuggle in it. He kissed her gently on the forehead and whispered goodnight, and then headed for the bathroom to go get ready for bed himself.

**A/N: **Please Review! I have school tomorrow, so reading them will be a nice picker upper!!


	14. Disappearing Act

**Disclaimer:** I still do not own them, and I really doubt they'll be my birthday present.

**A/N:** Thanks again for all the reviews! I really do love them! I hope this chapter makes up for not updating yesterday, I had a bit of writer's block, and then I came up with this at midnight last night. Well, here it is. Enjoy!!

**30 hours earlier (7 pm)…**

Sara woke up with a nightmarish image already in her mind from the car earlier that morning. She reached over on the bed, but it was cold. Come to think of it, she didn't remember Grissom coming home, or going upstairs to the bedroom, or even falling asleep for that matter.

She could smell the inviting aroma of pancakes coming from downstairs, obviously, Grissom was here. He had gotten up early to cook breakfast/dinner, whatever you would call a meal after you just woke up in the evening, like he always did.

Grabbing a robe from the chair beside the bed, she shrugged it over her shoulders, and headed downstairs. He didn't need to hear her footsteps coming down the stairs to know she was standing in the kitchen doorway watching him.

"Good morning my dear," he said, turning around to face her.

"Good morning," she said. Her hair was all frizzy, and Grissom's robe thrown over sweats hung at her shoulders, but Grissom thought she was beautiful all the same. Giving him a quick kiss, Sara took a seat at the kitchen table. After a few minutes of silence, she asked, "Have you noticed anything weird recently?"

"No, why?" Grissom asked, placing the pancakes on two plates.

Shaking her head, she said, "No reason." Grissom brought the plates over and they ate.

After loading the dishwasher, Sara went upstairs to take a shower. Grissom gave Brass a call.

"Hey Gil," Brass said, answering his phone.

"Hey Jim. Will we be seeing Mr. Richard Fechyrna today?"

"Yeah, he'll be in the interrogation room an hour before shift starts. And you have to see the picture the sketch artist did from the boy's description."

"Okay. Have you seen it yet?"

"No… You'll find this interesting: before I left last night, Greg said he got a match on the hairs from the scene. They matched the DNA from a cold case, you'll never guess who."

"Julia Fechyrna."

"I'm not even going to ask how you knew that. But how does a dead woman's hair show up at our crime scene, she was there forty years ago. The hairs wouldn't still be there."

"Or on our victim for that matter," Grissom said, hanging up the phone.

**29 hours earlier (8 pm)…**

"Sara," Grissom called up the stairs, she was just fixing her hair before they would leave for work.

"Yeah," she replied, leaving the bedroom and descending down the stairs.

"Brass said that we will be talking with Richard Fechyrna an hour before shift."

"Well, good thing we were going in early anyway."

"He also said that Greg told him the DNA results of the blonde hairs."

"Who did they match?"  
"Julia Fechyrna." Sara froze in place, her shoe half way on her foot.

"No way. How does a dead woman's DNA end up at the scene and on our murder victim?"

"I don't know, but maybe we'll get somewhere with this after we talk to Mr. Fechyrna."

Sara was in the bathroom, applying the small amount of makeup she wore, as Grissom threw on his jacket. They didn't like not being able to drive to work together, or having to be careful about how often they both came in early together, but they would have to suffer through it if they wanted to keep their relationship a secret.

"Honey, have you seen my car keys?" Grissom asked.

"Weren't they on the table by the door?"

"Yeah, but they're not there now."

"Check the bedroom, maybe you brought them up there." He checked the bedroom.

"They're not there."

"Maybe you put them in the kitchen… by the coffee pot?"

"Not there either," Grissom said, walking into the hallway. He spotted the keys sitting on the table by the door, standing out from everything else like someone had placed them there. He snatched them up and walked into the bathroom. He held them up to the mirror, talking to Sara's reflection. "Where'd you find them?"

"I didn't. I've been in here. Where were they?" she asked, while putting her makeup away in the cabinet.

"On the table."

"Didn't you check there?"

"I did, then, they weren't there, but just now they were…" He blew it off as nothing, "I better get going, don't want to be late for the interview."

"You won't be late, I have to be there too and I didn't leave yet." He gave her a quick kiss and headed out the door, without a second thought about his disappearing keys.

**A/N:** Please Review! They bring me joy!


	15. Case Concluded

**Disclaimer: **Don't own them. If I did, things would be so different!

**A/N:** Okay, well, I wasn't to pleased with this chapter, but I know you guys want something, so I'm posting it anyway. The case wraps up, but don't worry, the haunting has just begun (evil laugh)!! Well, now I have to go study, so here it is.

**28 hours earlier (9 pm)…**

"I definitely see a resemblance," Sara said. Brass was showing her and Grissom the sketch from the description kindly provided by Timothy Kuebler. They were standing just outside the interrogation room, making a comparison of the man in the small room and the man on the paper.

"It could be him," Brass said, shrugging.

"Let's see what he can tell us," Grissom said.

They entered the interrogation room. Sara and Grissom took a seat at the table across from the suspect, Brass remained standing. Richard Fechyrna seemed anxious; he was chewing his lip and constantly tapping his foot. Either he was afraid of being wrongly accused, or he was a murderer afraid of being caught.

"Mr. Fechyrna, we have some evidence that places you at our crime scene. Not just near the scene, but we have a witness that claims to have seen you by the room one of the victims was found in. Would you like to explain?" Grissom asked.

"What evidence do you have?" he asked, trying, and failing, to hide the nervousness creeping into his voice.

"Well, we have your fingerprints at the scene, a witness that claims to have seen you, and I noticed your shoes are the same kind of running shoes that left the footprint at the scene," Sara said. She laid out a picture of where the print was found, the description Timothy gave, and the footprint, along with a picture of each victim: one from the actual scene, and one picture from when they were alive.

"Do you know either of these people?" Grissom asked.

"I've seen them before," he said, a bit unsure of himself.

"When they were dead or alive?"

"Both," Richard said, continually moving his hands in a nervous gesture.

"How?"

His conscience seemed to be catching up with him, "I killed them." Sara and Grissom glanced unsurely at each other.

"Why?" Sara asked.

"Well… I was sick of hearing that my mother was haunting the hospital, and I wanted to scare those stupid kids. If they believe the myth, why not make it a reality, right?" He continued before they could answer, "It was hard losing my mother at an early age, but then to her about how she goes around at night haunting people in death… I just wanted to freak out some kids… I stayed at the abandoned hospital twice, just waiting for some kids to come along. I stabbed them the same way my mother had been stabbed and killed," he admitted it quite easily.

"Why did we find some blonde hairs that belonged to your mother at the scene?" Sara asked.

"…I had some hairbrushes of her's back at my house, and I planted the hairs to make it look like she was there."

"Well Brass, I think we're done here," Grissom said.

**27 hours earlier (10 pm)… **

Shift just started: everyone was gathered in the break room, Grissom and Sara were telling them about how the case wrapped up.

"So, he used hairs from a brush and planted them at the scene. And because hairs are sometimes yanked out by the roots with a hairbrush, we thought there was a struggle at the abandoned hospital," Warrick said.

"Yeah," Sara said, agreeing with him.

"I have to admit, that was a good idea," Nick said.

"Yeah Nicky, but we always outsmart the criminals," Catherine said, totally full of herself.

"Okay, well Catherine, then let's go out there and outsmart some more… You guys get three DBs at a casino on the strip," Grissom said, handing Greg the slip of paper. "Sara and I have to work on the paperwork to officially close this case." Greg, Catherine, Warrick, and Nick got up and left the break room to head to their scene, which would probably last at least halfway into daylight.

The rest of shift was uneventful for the most part. Richard Fechyrna was put in jail, paperwork was finished, and Grissom and Sara were actually able to leave a bit before shift ended.

**A/N: ** Please Review!! There will be another chapter up tomorrow!


	16. Something in the House

**Disclaimer: **No, this disclaimer has not changed. I still don't own anything.

**A/N:** Okay, I apologize for this chapter being posted late at night, but I was working on it for like, two hours because my brother kept talking to me and I couldn't concentrate. I know you guys don't actually care what my excuse is, so to put an end to my rambling, here is the next chapter. And thanks so much for the reviews!! I love them.

**16 hours earlier (9 am)… **

Grissom had left about half an hour ago to pick up some groceries. They didn't have to worry about getting sleep before shift tonight, because they both had the night off, a once in a lifetime occurrence. Sara was taking the time to clean up the bedroom a bit.

She rolled up the throw rug near the side of the bed; planning on shaking it out outside. Sara spotted something on the floor. It appeared to be burned into the wood surface. Tilting her head curiously to the side, she attempted to trace the letters J. F. with her finger, but quickly took her hand away; the burning sensation went right through her. The first thing that came into her mind about the letters was 'Julia Fechyrna,' noting it in her head as strange. She picked up the rug and headed towards the stairs.

With ten steps still to go down, it felt as if something grabbed and yanked her ankle, hard. Easily losing her balance, she tried to reach for the railing before tumbling down the stairs, but to no avail. Trying to stop the fall, but with limited success, all she thought was that she was glad these stairs were carpeted.

Using her hands to break her fall somewhat, she twisted her wrist. No sounds of bones snapping, so her wrist was probably fine, just bruised. Quickly darting her gaze from her wrist to the top of the stairs to look for anything her foot might have caught on, she caught a glimpse of something move down the hall, but just as fast, it was gone.

Standing up and practically running out of the house, ignoring the slight pain in her ribs from the fall, she stopped at the end of the driveway, and looked back. The verticals in one of the second floor windows were swaying back and forth as if someone had just backed up from looking out the window, _there's no wind inside_, she thought.

Slowly making her way back to the house, she sat down on the stoop. "I am not going back in there until Gil gets back," she said to herself, to terrified right now to step foot in the house. Glancing down at her ankle, she saw the purple bruise forming. Now that was unexplainable, something had caused her to fall, and whatever it was couldn't be easily seen. Placing her head in her hands, she tried to convince herself that she wasn't going insane.

**15 hours earlier (10 am)…**

Saying she was relieved when Grissom's car showed up would have been an understatement. Convincing herself she wasn't going crazy, hadn't been as easy as it sounded. Sara hadn't realized that she had been sitting outside for almost an hour.

The distress was obvious on her usually relaxed features, it worried Grissom. Getting out of the car, he went over to her.

Kneeling down in front of Sara, he lifted her chin so she would meet his gaze. Her eyes didn't betray the feelings her facial features were giving out, only, her brown eyes were swirled with fear, not just distress. Placing his hand on the side of her face, she flinched slightly, but leaned into his touch. His thumb lovingly caressed her cheek.

"Sara, what's wrong?" he asked, concerned something had happened. She didn't answer his question, but instead wrapped her arms around his neck, and buried her face in his shoulder. Grissom put his arms protectively around her, kissed her hair, and whispered that everything would be alright. He was surprised when she started to sob in his arms…

**A/N:** So, what'cha think?? Puh-leaze Review!


	17. Unbelievable Explanation

**Disclaimer:** Still don't own anything!

**A/N: **I really appreciate all the reviews I have gotten so far! Thanks so much you guys!! So, here is the next chapter, all ready for you to read. Hope you like it!

The tears soaked his shoulder, but he didn't care. Though eventually her body shaking sobs stopped, the tears didn't. He helped her stand up.

"Let's go in the house," Grissom said. She was hesitant about going inside, but quickly told herself that Gil wouldn't let anything harm her.

Following him inside, they sat down on the couch, the groceries in the car long forgotten. Sara curled up against his side, her tears, though slower now, were still making their way down her cheeks. Grissom wrapped his arm around her shoulders,

"Honey, what's wrong? Tell me what happened." She didn't talk for a long moment, but eventually broke the silence.

"I was upstairs cleaning the bedroom, and I had picked up the carpet near the side of the bed… I found this burn pattern that had been hidden underneath."

"I've never noticed a burn."

"Neither have I, that's why I thought it was strange," Sara continued. "I traced the letters with my finger and it was hot to the touch. I took my hand away and picked up the rug to bring downstairs… I was making my way down them, and it felt like something grabbed my ankle. I lost my balance and tumbled down. I bruised my ribs and my wrist when I landed. But I looked up at the stairs to see what I tripped on, there was nothing there. And out of the corner of my eye, I saw something move down the hallway, but before I could make sense of it, it was gone… I got up and ran out of the house. Looking back I saw the verticals to one of the upstairs windows swaying back and forth as if someone had just pulled back from looking out the window. It freaked me out because no one was up there, and it's not like there was wind in the house. I didn't come back inside; I waited for you to get home."

"How long had you been sitting out front?"

"I don't know, maybe about an hour… Gil, tell me you believe me and I'm not just going insane…"

"Sara, I'm sure whatever it was can be somehow explained. I don't think you're going crazy."

"Gil," she hesitated a moment, so he tried to get her to continue.

"Yes sweetheart," he said, kissing the top of her head.

"I think there's something in this house," she said quietly, unsure of what he would say.  
"What, do you mean like a ghost?"

"How else could it be explained?" Sara asked.  
"I don't know, but I'm sure there's a more reasonable explanation," Grissom said, he never did believe much in ghosts.

"You don't believe me, do you?" He remained silent, but held her tighter to him. "That's a yes," she stated matter-of-factly.

**A/N: **Please Review! They make me all warm and fuzzy inside!


	18. Concerned

**Disclaimer: **I don't own anything!

**A/N: **Thanks so much for all the reviews. Here's the next chapter!

**14 hours earlier (11 am)…**

As Grissom put away the groceries from the car, Sara had decided to rest. She had refused to go upstairs to their bedroom, so instead decided to sleep in the guest room downstairs, across from the kitchen. He had offered to join her, but she insisted she wanted to sleep alone. This was strange to Grissom because Sara had always complained to him about how, when he was at work and she was at home, she could never sleep; at least ever since they had started sleeping together.

Sara wasn't exactly tired; she just needed an excuse for Grissom to leave her alone. She knew she had hurt him when she said she would rather sleep alone, but when Grissom pretty much told her that he didn't believe her about the whole ghost thing, it hurt her more.

She turned over in the bed. She hated sleeping without Grissom, especially since she wasn't familiar with this room, it's not like she had ever slept in the guest room before. Sara just couldn't stand to think about going back into that room. If whatever was in this house was able to burn the floor and push her down the stairs, she really didn't want to go back in the room where the thing had left its mark. She thought Grissom would have supported her theory, no matter how strange it may have been. A few moments later and her eyes started to drift closed, just to meet the restless sleep ahead of her.

Grissom, now finished with the groceries, was upstairs in their bedroom. He wanted to see this burn in the wood floor Sara had been talking about. Grissom wasn't one to believe in ghosts, or any kind of paranormal activity for that matter. He hoped whatever it was would just go away. He didn't want to confirm what Sara feared of something being in the house.

He examined the black mark on the floor. It was most definitely a burn. He too, traced the letters burnt into the wood, only, it wasn't hot now. JF: nothing came to his mind right away, but as he pondered over the initials, he, like Sara, came up with the name Julia Fechyrna. He understood now, why she thought there could be a ghost here, but to him, it just didn't seem logical. He thought it would be best to just forget about it.

**13 hours earlier (12 pm)… **

Her soft cries coming from the guest room caused him to lower the volume on the T.V. Grissom was hoping she wasn't having another nightmare. He waited a few minutes, hoping that it would pass; it usually never did, and today was no different. Once he heard her ear splitting scream, he quickly made his way into the bedroom to comfort her.

"Sara, Sara. Honey, wake up. It's just a dream," he lightly shook her shoulder as he spoke. When she didn't wake up and her breathing became irregular, he pulled her into his arms, gently rocking her back and forth; sometimes the soothing motion would either calm her enough and the nightmare would go away, or it would wake her up. Her eyes shot opened and she seemed a little panicked before she focused on Grissom, then wrapping her arms around his neck, and burying her face in his chest. He lifted her head and lovingly kissed her lips.

Her breathing calmed as he held her, gently soothing her back to sleep. As her eyes closed once again, Grissom decided he should probably get some sleep too. He shifted Sara over on the bed, not releasing her from his arms. Holding her close, he soon followed her, falling asleep too.

**A/N: ** Please Review! They make me happy!


	19. Agree

**Disclaimer:** I don't own them!

**A/N:** I know this is short but I didn't get much of a chance to write today (plus, I did have a bit of writer's block). But I thought I should give you guys something. Thanks to all of you who have been reading and reviewing (or just reading)!!

**11 hours earlier (2 pm)…**

Grissom woke up with Sara still wrapped in his embrace, even though she was awake. She seemed to have been up for a while.

"When did you get up?" Grissom asked. Sara looked over at the clock.

"About an hour ago. You know, you're cute when you sleep," Sara stated. Grissom kissed her softly on the lips. Pulling back slightly, Sara said, "I'm sorry I was mad at you earlier." He kissed her again.

"Forgiven," he said. Sara snuggled up against him. A few moments later she started to make her way out of his arms and off the bed.

"I'm going to get dressed," she said, she had gone to sleep in her work clothes, which wasn't particularly comfortable. She winced slightly as she stood up. Grissom, ever the one to notice details, was quickly at her side, sitting her back down on the bed.

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah, it's just that, I hadn't expected my ankle to hurt so much."

"What do you mean?"

"There was a bruise forming yesterday," Sara said, bringing her ankle up on the bed to examine it. Her eyes grew wide when she saw the bruise that had formed. The dark black and blue mark covered all the way around her ankle. Grissom lightly traced a part of the bruise, but she still winced.

"Sara, this almost looks like a hand print," Grissom said. Sara looked to where his finger pointed. There were actually a few spaces in the bruise that could have resembled where fingers were placed.

"I told you, it was like someone pulled my ankle making me fall down the stairs… How do you explain that?" Sara asked, hoping he might believe her now, he was all for the evidence anyway.

"I can't explain it."

"So, you agree with me? That there is something in this house."

"Yes." He had been slow to answer but she was glad he agreed. "I'll go get you some clothes from the bedroom. Wait here."

"Okay," she replied, as she watched him exit the room.

**A/N: **Please Review!! I'd love to hear your opinion.


	20. Doubts

**Disclaimer: **I do not own anything!

**A/N: **Thanks so much for all the reviews guys!! They mean a lot to me. So, here is the next chapter. Wow! Chapter 20! I'm surprised myself. I did reread this but I'm really tired right now, so any and all mistakes are mine. Feel free to message me about a mistake, I'll gladly fix it. So, here it is. Enjoy!

**9 hours earlier (4 pm)…**

Sara was in the living room sitting on the couch with her laptop beside her. Ice was wrapped in a towel around her ankle, trying to get the bruise to disappear. Grissom came in, sitting down next to her. He asked her what she was doing.

"I'm trying to get someone's opinion about this thing," she waved her hand, motioning to the house.

"Who are you e-mailing?" he asked, interested in whoever would know anything about this.

"Well, I found this website and these people are paranormal investigators in Nevada. The site said that they live just outside of Vegas. So I thought maybe they could help us out."

"Isn't that bit over the top? Sara, I'm sure whatever it is, it will just go away, we don't need to drag people out here for this."

"It's not just gonna go away. Awhile ago I had been interested in ghosts and stuff, so I had read a few books about them. They don't just 'go away', and if you try to run from them, they more then likely will follow you. I mean, this thing followed us from the hospital."

"So what do you plan on telling them?"

"Well, I'm mentioning that we investigated a double homicide in a 'haunted' mental hospital. I'll tell them about the stairway incident and about your missing keys-"

He cut her off, "Sara, that was nothing. I just didn't see them."

"I'm mentioning it anyway. And then I'll tell them about what I saw in the car, on my way here.

"Sara, I'm sure whatever you saw was and/or meant nothing. You were probably just tired."

"I thought you said you believed me about all this?"

"I do."

"Then why do you keep denying everything I'm telling you?" To this, Grissom remained silent. "Do you believe me or not?" There was a slight tinge of anger in her voice now.

"Yes. I believe you."

"Well, then you could at least act like it. Instead of making me think that I'm just crazy, and none of this actually happened." Grissom wrapped his arm around her waist, and turned her head from the laptop screen to face him with his other hand. Brushing a stray strand of hair from her face, he said, "Honey, you are not crazy." He leaned in to capture her lips in a sweet, passionate kiss.

Separating for air, Sara leaned her head on his shoulder, and he wrapped both arms around her and held her close. They stayed like that for longer than they cared to know. They were both unsure about this whole thing, and now both were wondering what this 'thing' would do to their relationship.

**A/N:** Puh-leaze Review!! And to all of you who didn't already know this: TWO DAYS!!


	21. Emails

**Disclaimer: **For the 21st time, I repeat, I do not own them!

**A/N: **I apologize for not updating yesterday, and I'm sorry to those of you who I told that there would be another chapter last night. I was going to update, but I was hit with some writer's block halfway through the chapter. Originally I wasn't going to update today because of the CSI season nine premiere and all, but I figured since I didn't give you a chapter last night, I would give you one today. So, here it is!

**7 hours earlier (6 pm)…**

Having sent the e-mail to the paranormal investigators an hour ago, Sara checked her e-mail now, after dinner. The computer screen blinked with 'one new message'. Sara opened it. It read:

Ms. Sidle,

I do believe that you and your boyfriend are experiencing paranormal activity. My brother, Steve, and I can come into Vegas to talk with you in, let's say, two days. Just tell me when a good time would be for you, and we can then discuss details further.

Noreen

"Gil!" Sara called to him from the living room. "Come here!" Grissom entered the room.

"Yes?" he said, looking over her shoulder at the laptop screen.

"I got a response from Noreen."

"Noreen?"

"Yeah, Noreen, one of the paranormal investigators I told you I would be e-mailing."

"Right… What did she say?"

"That she agrees with me about this and she can come to Vegas to speak with us in two days."

"Okay. Fine," Grissom somewhat, albeit reluctantly, agreed. Sara sent Noreen another e-mail.

**5 hours earlier (8 pm)…**

Sara made her way down the stairs, gripping the railing as she went, her wet hair swaying at her shoulders.

"Tired?" Grissom asked her, as she entered the living room. She usually took a shower a little while before going to bed, plus, she was already wearing her sleep clothes, even though it was their night off.

"Yeah," Sara said as she curled up next to him on the couch.

"Then let's go to bed. I'm sure we could use the extra sleep," Grissom said as he stood from his seat on the couch. He held out his hand, and Sara took it, pulling herself up. Grissom headed to the stairs but Sara froze.

"I'm not sleeping up there until we get this resolved," Sara said, crossing her arms over her chest.

"Sara, come on. Nothing is going to hurt you."

"I'm not going up there."

"Fine then," he turned to the guest room. "Let's go."

Wrapped in blankets, Sara leaned back against Grissom's chest; he wrapped his arms around her. They shared a passionate kiss before they both drifted off to sleep; unaware of the abrupt awakening they'd be in for.

**A/N:** Puh-leaze Review!! I'll update tomorrow, depending on my mood after watching the season nine premiere.


	22. Present Time

**Disclaimer: **Still don't own them!

**A/N:** So, what did you guys think of the premiere?? I thought it was really good! But so sad. I'm so excited for the next episode! Well, here's the next chapter. Sorry I'm updating kinda late, but better late than never right?

**Present Time (1 am)…**

The room seemed to suddenly drop in temperature, but neither of the bed's occupants appeared to notice. The opened window could have fit for an explanation, but here in Vegas, it was pushing 90 degrees. The sudden clap of thunder could've explained why she jolted awake and upright, but they both knew that wasn't the reason. She was shivering even buried under the covers. Placing a shaking hand on his shoulder she desperately tried to shake him awake, "Gil… Gil, please wake up. Please...," she pleaded with his sleeping form. Grissom placed his hand over hers and turned over to face her. The fear gleaming in her eyes quickly rid his mind of the sleep- induced haze. Grissom sat up, and moved closer to her on the bed. He wrapped his arms around her and she fell into his embrace. She was trembling and whimpering slightly, trying to hold back the tears that were blurring her vision.

Rubbing his hand up and down her arm he spoke gently, trying to soothe her, "Shhh… Sara, its okay… Calm down. You're safe now, it was only a dream." But it wasn't. Her breathing was fast and irregular, she wasn't calming down. "Sara, you need to take a deep breath." Without realizing, she complied. "You have to let it out too," Grissom said after a few seconds where she didn't seem to breathe. She did as told again, but her vision distorted as she started to black out. As Grissom instructed her to take another breath, she suddenly couldn't breath. Her eyes fell closed as Grissom grabbed the phone from the nightstand. Quickly, he dialed nine-one-one.

Earlier that day when she was on the verge of a panic attack, she was able to focus on what he was saying, and stop it before she would've blacked out. But this time was different. And it was all because of a case.

Grissom carefully lifted her from the bed as he heard the blaring sirens approaching. Placing her on the couch in the living room, he quickly ran to open the front door as he heard the ambulance screech to a halt just outside.

Paramedics rushed in, quickly getting Sara onto a stretcher and putting a breathing mask over her face. Just as quickly, they were out to the ambulance, loading her in. Grissom grabbed a pair of sneakers from beside the door, throwing them on as he ran outside to the ambulance. Climbing in right before they were about to speed off.

The ambulance ride was a blur to him, he didn't remember anything the paramedics did, he didn't remember getting out of the ambulance, and, only because it happened a few minutes ago, did he remember the nurse holding him back from the emergency room corridor, telling him to stay in the waiting room until a doctor came out to speak with him. In the meantime he filled out paperwork, his favorite thing in the world, not.

Now, he was pacing the empty waiting room, willing a doctor to walk in. The clock ticked loudly announcing that it was two in the morning, in the light blue walled waiting room, and just outside, the rain beat down on the pavement hard enough for it to be heard through the walls. Just as he was about to march out to the nurse's station and demand an update,- it had been forty minutes since he arrived in the waiting room- a doctor entered the room.

The door swinging shut with a bang, from a broken spring, echoed in the small space.

"Mr. Grissom?" the doctor in blue scrubs asked. Grissom nodded, walking up to the man to shake his hand. "I'm Dr. Blanchiord, Ms. Sidle's doctor."

"Nice to meet you," Grissom said. "Just not under these circumstances."

"Of course not."

"What happened? Is she alright?" Grissom asked, desperation creeping into his voice.

"Well, it was just a panic attack, nothing to really worry about. Probably brought on by a dream, more than likely from recent events that finally just shut her mind down… Currently, she is asleep. We had to sedate her. Her blood pressure was going dangerously high, and we had to settle it back down. It wasn't a heavy dose, just enough to keep her blood pressure under control," Dr. Blanchiord explained.

"May I see her?" Grissom asked, nervously, absentmindedly clenching and unclenching his fists.

"Yes, just make sure to let her rest."

Dr. Blanchiord led Grissom through the hallway and into a large room, curtains separating beds into little private, curtained off cubicles. The doctor led Grissom to where Sara was and moved the curtain aside.

"Tell a nurse or myself if you need anything or have any questions or concerns."

"Will do, doctor," Grissom said, as the man stepped aside, letting Grissom enter, then re-closing the curtains.

Grissom pulled a chair up next to Sara's bed. Placing his hand on her cheek, he gently kissed her slightly parted lips. He was surprised when she responded. Pulling away slightly he said, "Sorry, I didn't mean to wake you."

"It's okay, I already heard you enter," Sara said, turning her head more to the side to face him. Grissom placed a dangling strand of brown hair, which had fallen in front of her eyes, behind her ear. She smiled softly at him.

"Do you know when I'll be able to leave here?"

"Probably soon. The doctor said the panic attack was nothing to be worried about really. He said it was probably a dream about recent events and what not."

"He's right, it was."

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"Later. When I leave here," Sara said, as she let her eyes drift closed and felt Grissom gently kiss her forehead.

**A/N: **Puh-leaze Review!!


	23. Uneasy

**Disclaimer: **Still do not own them!

**A/N: **I forgot to mention that I have no medical background what-so-ever. So I'm sorry if something is different from what would have actually happened. I'm so tried right now, and I was trying to get through my writer's block, so I'm sorry for any mistakes. Here's the next chapter.

**10 am…**

Sara had awoken a couple hours earlier. Grissom had only gone home once while she slept to get her some clothes for when she would be released from the hospital in the morning, he also grabbed their jackets, the rain had still not let up.

Filling out the last paper that needed a signature, and Sara was glad she was able to leave the hospital. She was only there for about nine hours, most of them spent sleeping, but either way she just hated hospitals.

Grissom put his arm around her as they walked out to his car in the rain. The ride to Grissom's townhouse was spent in silence, besides the rain pounding outside and the loud cracks of thunder ever once in awhile.

The car pulled into the driveway of the townhouse. Instantly Sara felt uneasy, whether it was an actual feeling or just in her head, she didn't know. Placing her hand on Grissom's arm before he could climb out of the car, she said, "Gil, could we stay at my place tonight?" She seemed a little shaken, and Grissom agreed, it probably would be better to spend a night or two at her apartment.

"Sure… I just, uh, have to get a few things," Grissom said. He got out of the car and headed inside the house.

The car's inside lights went off, and Sara found herself reaching to switch them back on, which was slightly unusually because she didn't mind the dark, most of the time.

Grissom walked down the hallway leading to the bedroom. As he passed the mirror hanging on the wall, something caught his eye. Quickly focusing back on the mirror, he saw what had captured his attention. There, in the window a few feet behind him, was something looking back at him through the mirror, it had a ghostly coloring to it, but it did have a few similarities to the woman in the 'haunted' hospital case. Now he was feeling uneasy, quickly he retraced his steps, and ran for the door, but slowing down once he was outside, he didn't want to worry Sara more.

Her uneasiness continued, and she took that to mean that it wasn't just in her head, totally made up. She was relieved when she saw Grissom exit the house. But his pale face didn't go unnoticed.

"You saw something, didn't you?" Sara asked as Grissom got into the car.

**A/N:** Please Review! They are greatly appreciated!!


	24. Explaining

**Disclaimer:** I still do not own them!

**A/N:** I am so so so sorry for not updating yesterday. I was busy with homework and what not, speaking of which, I have to go work on some more right now. Here's the next chapter. Thanks again for all the reviews!

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"Didn't you?" Sara repeated herself, this time a little more demanding, as Grissom backed the car out of the driveway.

"Yes," he admitted, not bothering to elaborate though.

When he didn't continue, she thought, _well at least he didn't deny it. I can push him about it later. _"Weren't you going to get something?" Sara asked, rather abruptly, realizing he didn't bring anything with him out of the house.  
"I have some things at your apartment. I wasn't getting anything important." It was true, he did have a few things at her place, but her opinion, was that he was too freaked out by whatever he saw, to stay in the house any longer.

The car ride to her apartment was spent in silence: Grissom concentrating on the road, Sara deep in thought. Upon arriving at her apartment, Sara unlocked the door, walked in and took a seat on the couch; she was suddenly more relaxed being here. Grissom closed the door and draped his coat over a chair, taking Sara's from her; he did the same with her coat.

Grissom sat down next to her, wrapping his arms around her waist. She rested her head on his shoulder and leaned into his embrace.

"Are you going to tell me what your dream was about?" Grissom asked, as he soothingly ran his hand through her hair.

"Only if you tell me what you saw in the house," Sara responded.

"It wasn't really what I saw in the house, as more a matter of what I saw outside of the house."

"You were inside though, right?"  
"Yeah, but whatever it was, I saw through the window, therefore it was outside."

"Always the one to be so precise," Sara said; a small smile crept on his face. "Continue on," she said, he was stalling and she knew it.

"Well, I was in the upstairs hallway, passing the mirror, and something caught my eye… I retraced my steps thinking it was nothing, but when I looked back at the mirror, I saw a woman's face staring back at me, but what struck me as odd, was that I could see her, but I could also see through her, she looked kind of ghostly. And it did resemble the lady, Julia Fechyrna, from the case we worked…" his last sentence drifted off a bit. Sara didn't seem surprised at what he said. "So, what was your dream about?"

"You know how most of the time when you have dream or nightmare or whatever, you don't remember it all, or at least not clearly?"

"Yeah," Grissom said, silently encouraging her on.

**A/N:** I'm sorry I stopped it there, but I'm still thinking through what exactly her dream should have been about. Any ideas? Go ahead and give me your opinion! Please Review!!


	25. Unpleasant Dreams

**Disclaimer:** I own nothing!

**A/N: **Thank you guys so much for the reviews!! I would've made this chapter a bit longer, but my mom needs the computer. There probably will not be an update tomorrow, I'm sure most of you know why (duh, its Thursday!! CSI! I'm sooo excited). And thanks to Sara lover554 for giving me a great idea, which helped me along with writing this chapter.

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"Yeah," Grissom said, silently encouraging her on. "Just start from whatever you remember." Sara took a deep breath and started from the beginning, at least the beginning she remembered.

"Nick and I were investigating another death at the mental hospital. When we entered the room with the body, there was someone in there; we had been told that the scene was clear. The man kinda looked like Richard Fechyrna, ya know, Julia Fechyrna's brother."

Grissom nodded and she continued on telling the story:

"Nick said something to him, and Richard turned to draw a knife. Nick drew his gun. I was about to grab mine, when Richard threw the knife at Nick-which stabbed his arm-and he dropped his gun. Next thing I knew I was running through one of the hallways, I fired the gun at the figure behind me, but the bullet went right through the figure. I think it was Julia Fechyrna, the ghost?" she said it more as a question than a statement. "I can't remember anything clearly after that until the time right before I woke up," she took a deep breath.

"What caused you to totally black out?" Grissom asked.

"Well, in the dream, I had tripped running down the hallway, and the next thing I knew, Julia Fechyrna was standing over me, knife in hand. That's when I startled awake-right before she was about to stab me- it felt like something was pressing against my throat. And I couldn't breathe when I wanted to." Grissom held her closer to him, a few tears tumbled down her cheeks, but Grissom quickly wiped them away. "And then I remember waking up in the hospital." A few moments spent in silence inched by before either of them spoke.

"I'm going to go take a shower," Sara said, unwrapping his arms from around her, she headed upstairs to the bathroom.

Stepping out of the shower-it was much colder out there than behind the shower curtain- Sara grabbed a towel from the counter, wrapping it around herself, in an attempt to dry away the water and warm up a bit. She wiped away the moisture on part of the mirror, and just like in the movies, there was a flash of lightening and a crack of thunder outside, causing the lights to flicker. In seconds they were back on, and Sara found herself about ready to scream at the image reflected back to her in the mirror. The ghostly face of Julia Fechyrna was staring right at her through the mirror. Sara quickly threw her hand over her mouth to keep from screaming, and jumped around to see what was being reflected in the mirror, yet, there was nothing. Leaning back against the wall, weak at the knees from fear, Sara lowered herself to the floor. Hugging her knees to her chest, she rested her head on top of them and sobbed. She didn't know how long it had been until she heard Grissom knocking on the bathroom door.

**A/N: **Puh-leaze Review!! They keep me happy!


	26. Mirror Reflections

**Disclaimer: **If I owned them, Thursday's episode would so, not have ended the way it did!

**A/N: **I apologize for not updating yesterday, but I was still overly annoyed about Thursday's episode. So I wanted to calm down a bit before I wrote this (I didn't want to take my anger out on my story). And I'm sorry for updating so late at night: I had typed this chapter up this morning, but I didn't get a chance to proofread it until now (I always have to proofread), plus, my friend didn't leave my house until, like, 11 at night, so I was a bit delayed with this chapter.

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Grissom had gone to see if Sara wanted anything to eat when she was done with her shower. Knocking lightly on the bathroom door, he thought he heard her crying.

"Sara? Honey, are you okay?" She didn't answer, but he could still hear her sobbing. He slowly opened the door.

Upon entering the bathroom, she raised her head from her knees to look up at him, unshed tears in her eyes and the remnants of some glistening on her eyelashes. Grissom knelt down on the floor next to Sara and took her in his arms. Sara wrapped her arms around his neck and buried her face in his shoulder. The tears continued, but the sobs slowed.

Sara pulled back slightly, wiping the tears away with the back of her hand. Grissom gently touched her lips with his. It wasn't much of a kiss, but it was enough for Sara to know that he was here for her. Grissom then asked her what happened.

"I saw her in the mirror," she stated.

"The ghost?"

"Yeah," she said.

Grissom stood up from the floor and helped Sara get up. He put his arm around her waist, and led her into the bedroom. He helped her into her sleep clothes, but before she was about to climb into bed, she said, "Do you think I should e-mail Noreen about this?"

"The paranormal investigator?" Sara nodded. "E-mail her later, we should get some sleep before shift," Grissom said.

"It's a good thing I didn't have to stay overnight at the hospital. I wonder if the team would've noticed if we both didn't show up for work."

"I'm sure they would have noticed. We still don't want the team to know about us, right?"

"Right," she said. They both climbed into bed.

Sara was held close against Grissom's chest. He had easily drifted off to sleep, but Sara found herself staring up at the ceiling. She was tired, but yet, she couldn't get the ghost's face out of her mind: every time she closed her eyes, it would appear. Eventually, when she couldn't fight her eyes from closing anymore, she too, fell asleep.

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**A/N: **Puh-leaze Review!! I could really use some cheering up (and I'm sure most of you know why)!


	27. News of a B&E

**Disclaimer: **I still do not own them!!

**A/N:** I came up with this idea yesterday to add into my story. i thought it was interesting, and I enjoyed writing this. I don't knw why, but I just did. Three days until the next CSI eppy! Even if I'm still annoyed about last week's episode, I can't help but be excited for the next episode.

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Everyone had arrived in the break room on time for the start of shift, the rain outside was now nothing more than a drizzle, making traffic light. But the team was disappointed when they found out that there were no new cases. So everyone worked on their notes from other already solved cases, so they could hand in the files. Just because shift was uneventful, didn't mean that there would be nothing to investigate later, back at Grissom's townhouse.

Grissom decided not to stay late to read through everyone's case files, it's not like he really wanted to anyway-just more paperwork to take up room on his desk. Instead, he and Sara went out for breakfast. Not wanting to be seen together by any of their coworkers, they decided on a diner further from the lab than the one they usually went to with the team.

The ghost situation was brought up casually by Grissom; he had asked Sara if she had e-mailed Noreen back yet. Though she hadn't, she planned on doing so once they were back at his townhouse. Moving on to a lighter topic about bugs, the ghost situation drifted from their minds

Sara had followed Grissom to his townhouse, sure she knew the way, by now she could probably even drive there with her eyes closed, but just so they'd arrive at the same time, she followed his car. As Grissom parked his car in the garage, Sara unlocked the front door. Yanking the key from the lock, she turned to hang up her coat, freezing in place; her eyes scanned the living room. The room was trashed, the couch lay on its side, cushions and throw pillows strewed across the room, pictures knocked off from their places on the walls, books flung haphazardly from the shelves, and a lamp lay shattered on the carpeted floor-though it looked like it had hit the wall first.

Sara ran back outside to the garage just as Grissom was closing the door. Her shocked expression was still obvious on her features.

"Sara, what's wrong?" he asked as he approached her.

"Look at this," she said, pulling him by the arm, up the three steps leading to the front door. Grissom's first thought was to grab his phone and call Brass to report a robbery, but he paused right before hitting the call button.

"Sara, if I call Brass he'll probably send someone from our team over here to investigate." Sara caught on to his thinking, then their relationship would be revealed.

"It's morning, Grave finished hours ago, I bet everyone already left," Sara brushed off Grissom's small concern. He pushed the call button, and after three rings, Brass picked up.

**Meanwhile: **

Catherine and Warrick had stayed a few hours past shift's end going over the case that they worked months ago, which would be due in court in a few weeks. Catherine's cell rang just as they were gathering all of their papers together. Warrick listened in to her side of the conversation.

"Willows."

"Shift ended. Warrick and I were just leaving."

"A B&E, at Grissom's house? You've got to be kidding me."

"Sure, Warrick and I will be there. Give us 20 twenty minutes."

"Meet you there." Catherine hung up her phone, re-clipping it to her belt.

"Did I hear that correctly? A B&E at Grissom's house?" Warrick questioned, as he put away the file.

"Yup. We're meeting Brass there. Looks like we won't be getting any sleep anytime soon."

"Why couldn't days work this? Tonight was supposed to be my night off," Warrick complained.

"Suck it up," she said jokingly. "Look at it this way, we get to explore our supervisor's house and get paid for it," Catherine said, looking on the bright side of things.

"You must be thrilled," Warrick said, as they headed out of the lab and into one of the awaiting Tahoes, crime scene kits in hand. Catherine smiled to herself; _this is going to be fun_.

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**A/N: **Puh-leaze Review!! They make me happy!!


	28. The Secret is Out

**Disclaimer:** I still own nothing!

**A/N: **So here's the next chapter... Oh, I just wanted to say "Happy Anniversary!" to my parents (even though it's not like they read this, but why not...). Thanks so much to all of you who are reading and reviewing!! Here's the next chapter!

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Catherine and Warrick pulled up to the curb in front of Grissom's townhouse. Brass came over to them as they grabbed their kits from the back of the Tahoe.

"Did you interview Grissom yet?" Catherine asked Brass, who had approached them with a goofy 'I knew it' look on his face.

"What are you all smiley about?" Warrick asked, voicing what Catherine was thinking.

Brass turned to Catherine. "Yes Catherine, I interviewed him. But you might want to go speak to him anyway. I'm sure he wants to introduce you to his girlfriend," Brass said, smirking ever so slightly.

"Girlfriend?" Catherine and Warrick both blurted out in question.

"Yup," Brass said. "Go ahead and talk to them," Brass pointed over his shoulder at the couple standing at the far corner of the front lawn, facing away from them. Catherine and Warrick had failed to notice them sooner. As they walked over, Catherine noticed the car parked in Grissom's driveway, it definitely wasn't his, come to think of it, Sara had one just like it.

Grissom had his arms wrapped around Sara as Catherine and Warrick approached, her head rested on his shoulder, keeping her face from their view.

"Grissom!" Catherine said when she was a few feet away from them. Grissom's breath froze in his throat as he recognized the voice, and Sara stiffened in his arms ever so slightly.

"Oh great, it's Catherine," Grissom muttered to Sara. Of course Grissom did highly respect Catherine for many reasons. But they way she stuck her nose in other people's business, was not one of them. Knowing Catherine, their 'used to be secret relationship' would be known by the whole lab, including Ecklie, by the time night shift started. Grissom turned around to face Catherine, turning Sara around with him.

"Grissom, so, are you going to introduce us to your, girlfriend?" she whispered the last part once she had come face to face with Sara.

"You guys are together?" Warrick asked. "Like… in a dating relationship?"

"Yes," Grissom replied. "Have been for a few months now."

"Wow," Catherine said, still at loss for words. Sure, she knew that they had a thing for each other, but she never thought they would make a move on their feelings, especially not Grissom.

Warrick tried to skip over Catherine's twenty question game that he just knew she would ask once she found her voice again. He spoke before Catherine got a chance too, "So, what happened?"

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**A/N: **Please Review!! It is greatly appreciated!!


	29. Investigating May Be Snooping

**Disclaimer: **I do not own anything!!

**A/N:** Hi everyone! I love the reviews I've been getting! They're so wonderful to read! I had like three tests today, and the good thing about that was that when I finished each test, I got to write some more of my story. So I wrote this mainly at school, and just typed it up now. I hope you enjoy it!

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Grissom stood with his arm around Sara's shoulders, and he went on to tell Catherine and Warrick what he told Brass, which wasn't much considering he and Sara weren't home when the break in occurred. Catherine didn't seem to be paying attention, though it's not like there was anything really worth knowing. She was more interested in thinking up a long list of questions to ask Grissom during shift.

Processing the living room and kitchen had taken the better part of the late morning, early afternoon. Hours of fingerprinting, photographing, and tape lifting, now had Catherine dusting the bedroom doorknob for prints, while Warrick examined the bathroom.

Catherine photographed the dresser in the bedroom, whose drawers were either flung out or yanked somewhat opened, clothes now spread out all over the bedroom. Not disturbing any prints on the knobs of the drawers, Catherine slid one of the partially ajar drawers open the rest of the way. With her latex gloved hands, Catherine lifted something from the drawer, a smirk plastered on her face.

"They're definitely together," Catherine said, loud enough for Warrick- who was across the room in the bathroom- to hear. Warrick stepped out of the bathroom, and instantly froze when he saw what Catherine was holding: a pink frilly lingerie set.

"Catherine! What are you doing? We're supposed to be processing, not snooping!" Warrick scolded her, not that he was even the smallest bit surprised she was over using her investigating skills.

"The drawer was open, I had to inspect it," Catherine said innocently. Warrick just shook his head at her, and went back to processing the bathroom.

**Back Outside: **

Grissom had been talking with Brass for the past few hours or so. Now, the two officers who had come with Brass were leaving, their shift was long over just like Catherine's and Warrick's, and Brass'.

"You guys might want to stay in a hotel until tomorrow. This way it will give Catherine and Warrick an opportunity to come back during shift tonight, instead of rushing this now."

Grissom agreed with Brass, "We'll stay at Sara's apartment." He looked down at her, she nodded her agreement. "Do you think Cath and Warrick are done with the bedroom yet? We need to pack a few things…"

"Sure," Brass said. He took out his cell and punched in Catherine's number.

"You guys done with the bedroom yet?" Brass said into the phone. He could've sworn he heard Warrick chuckle in the background, the phone must have been on speaker.

"Yeah Jim, we did. Why?" Catherine replied.

"Because our little lovers out here-" Grissom glared at him, Jim smirked. "-need to get a few things, they'll be staying in Sara's apartment. So you guys can go home and get some sleep and finish this up during shift."

"Okay, sure. Ummm, we did the hallways, living room, kitchen, bedroom, and the upstairs bathroom. I guess we'll work on the rest later. When they come in to get some things, have them see if anything is missing."

"Okay, I'll tell them," Brass ended the call with a quick goodbye. "They finished processing the living room, kitchen, bedroom, upstairs bathroom, and the hallways, so just stay out of the other rooms." Grissom nodded when Brass finished speaking, he took Sara's hand and led her into the house. Brass just shook his head at the two of them, wearing the same smirk he had on his face hours earlier.

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**A/N: **Puh-leaze Review! I'm going to go paint my nails with butterflies now, then watch the next eppy of CSI!! Bye!


	30. Photos

**Disclaimer:** I still don't own anything...

**A/N: **Thank you so much for all the reviews everyone! I'm sorry this update is so short. I was at a party for my friend's sister's first birthday today, so this is all I got done. So, here's the next chapter!

During shift that night, Catherine and Warrick finished processing Grissom's townhouse, while everybody else was investigating a car crash. A few hours before shift ended, Grissom crossed paths with Catherine in the layout room.

"Did you find anything?" Grissom said, approaching the table where papers, photos, and random notes were spread out.

"All the fingerprints matched either you or Sara. There were no signs of a break in, all the locks, doors, and windows were fine. But, look at these photos…" Catherine said, handing Grissom three pictures.

The first photo was of the living room, only, right in the middle there was a splatter of black, making it look like someone had spilled something on the photo. The next photo was taken in the hallway; a dark spot had appeared on the far wall, though it wasn't in any of the other pictures. The last one was a picture of the bedroom, and off to the right you could see a clear outline of a person, but it looked like a shadow. Catherine noticed Grissom's puzzled expression.

"What?" she asked, curious as to why he reacted strangely to the pictures.

"Two of these look like something was messed up while it was being developed," Grissom said, showing the pictures to Catherine. "And I guess this is just someone's shadow," Grissom had doubts about what he said, but he didn't want to tell Catherine what he really thought.

"I guess," Catherine said. She was about to ask Grissom one of the questions that had been on her list of 'to be asked', when he spoke up.

"I'll be back in a minute," Grissom said, after looking over the pictures again. Grissom took the three photos to go make copies of them, he would have to show these to Sara later at home.

**A/N:** I gave you a chapter, I think that deserves a review. Sounds fair, right? : )


	31. Crash

**Disclaimer:** I own nothing!

**A/N: **I hope this chapter makes up for the short one I posted yesterday. I had this idea and just needed to include it. Thanks again for all the reviews.

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Sara was driving to her apartment. It was a little passed 10 am, she and Nick had stayed a couple hours after shift to finish up their accidental car crash. Sara was only just heading home when her phone rang. Checking the caller ID, she answered, just turning off the strip.

"Hey Griss'" she said.

"Hi. Are you on your way here?" Grissom had left work when shift ended for one of the few times in his life, he was already at her apartment.

"Yeah, I'm heading home now. I just got off the strip."

"Okay. Catherine said we could go back to the townhouse. They had to drop the case: no signs of a break in and none of the fingerprints hit anything suspicious… There was nothing for them to go on," Grissom sighed in defeat.

"Great," Sara said, sarcasm dripping off the one word.

"Sara, you might want to e-mail Noreen."

"Why?"

"Well, I have to show you these pictures that Catherine and Warrick took."

"Ummm, okay. Why, exactly, do I need to e-mail Noreen?" Sara asked, pulling the car onto a street only a few blocks away from her apartment.

"There was just something strange-"

"Shit!" Sara said into the phone as she veered the car sharply to the right, avoiding a woman in black that was suddenly standing in the middle of the road. Only, the wheels were turned too far, and she couldn't get it back on the road. The car jerked up a curb, and slammed into the metal streetlight pole.

"Sara!" Grissom yelled into the phone when he heard the crash. "Sara, honey, can you hear me?" The phone yielded no response. Leaving the phone glued to his ear, he ran out of the apartment, and darted out to the parking lot to find his car.

A massive headache was creeping its way to her. Her eyes were closed as she lifted her hand to her forehead. Finding the gash above her right eyebrow, she opened her eyes to look at her fingers, they were drenched in blood. Sara tried to sit up, pushing away from the deployed airbag.

Lucky for Grissom, he knew she must only had been a few blocks away when he heard the crash. He looked up and down each street until he spotted her car on the side of the road. He quickly sped up down the street, and jumped from the car before it even came to a complete stop.

Sara looked to her left when she heard the driver's side door open, but she regretted doing so when a stabbing pain crept up her neck and the headache became stronger. Grissom quickly dialed 9-1-1 for an ambulance.

He wrapped her arms around his neck, then wrapped his own arms around her waist, lifting Sara from the car. Her head dropped to his shoulder, he felt the blood from the wound leaking through his shirt. He supported her weight, afraid to let her stand, while he reached over to the passenger seat for her jacket. Spreading the jacket onto the grass, he lowered her onto it, keeping his hand behind her head, making sure it was elevated from the ground. With his other hand, he dug through the jacket pockets until he found the pack of tissues she always kept with her. Taking a hand full of tissues, he pressed them to the laceration on her forehead. She winced and tried to pull back, but Grissom kept her head in place. She looked up at him, but closed her eyes as the pain intensified.

"Keep your eyes open honey. It won't be good if you black out," Grissom said. She slowly opened her eyes: from the dark of her eyes being closed to the bright Las Vegas sun, made her head throb more.

The sirens and flashing lights of the ambulance appeared in the distance. Grissom's eyes left hers for a moment to see the ambulance approaching. She smiled softly when he met her gaze again, even with the predicament they were in, he returned her loving smile.

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**A/N: **Please Review! I'm going to go work on my Halloween costume : )


	32. Aftermath

**Disclaimer: **If I owned CSI, so many things would be different...

**A/N: **I'm so happy! This story has reached the 100 review mark! I feel so special! Thanks so much to everyone for reviewing! They really do make me happy. Okay, well, I wrote this mostly in school today. I don't know why, I usually don't write during my classes, but today I did. I was on this long writing streak. And it was fun too! So here's the next chapter! I have to go work on more homework (ugh! that stuff never ends)...

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"Eleven stitches to the laceration above her eyebrow. She has a slight concussion, nothing too serious. But if there is any dizziness, a severe increase in pain, or she feels nauseous, bring her back here immediately. Her neck is fine, though it will probably be sore for a day or two," the doctor recited Sara's condition to Grissom. They were in the ER again, within such a short span of time. Sara was sitting on the edge of one of the hospital beds, looking down at the floor, and swinging her legs back and forth, like an impatient child. Dr. Guiteraz, who was speaking with Grissom, had already spoken to her earlier about her condition, while he had been stitching her up.

"Just take some Advil for the headaches, they'll be expected, and for your neck," Dr. Guiteraz said, now speaking to Sara. She stood up from the edge of the bed, nodding her head then regretting the motion, "Okay."

Grissom shook the doctor's hand and thanked him. Grissom took Sara's hand and led her through the hospital, walking through hallways that were beginning to come all too familiar to him. Sara numbly followed.

Getting to the parking lot, Grissom opened the passenger side door for her. He watched her as she buckled herself in. She turned her head to face him.

"What?" she asked puzzled as to why his gaze was so focused on her. Grissom cupped her cheek and softly kissed her lips. She was too tired to even put much effort into returning the kiss. It was now one in the afternoon, way past the time they were usually in bed. Grissom pulled away.

"Tired?" he asked. She nodded her head.

"Then let's get back," he said. He closed the door for her, and walked around to the driver's side. He had driven his car to the hospital, following the ambulance. He had also called for a tow truck to get Sara's car and bring it to the mechanic, so it would, hopefully, be repaired quickly.

Getting into the car, he glanced over at Sara. Her eyes were already closed; she had her hand between her forehead and the hard, cool glass of the window, keeping her stitches from rubbing against it. Her breathing wasn't slow and relaxed, and her features still looked stressed, she obviously wasn't yet asleep. Placing his hand on her thigh, she looked over at him. Keeping her gaze focused to everything on the other side of the window, she gripped his hand with hers as he pulled the car out of the hospital parking lot.

Sara had been quiet during the ride to her apartment. Grissom would occasionally look over at her just to make sure she was okay. He chose not to bring up the accident; they would talk about it later. Grissom helped Sara from the car after he parked, leaving his hand around her waist.

"Gil, I can walk. It was only eleven stitches," she complained as he continued to help her up the steps to her apartment.

"And I slight concussion, plus a sore neck… I'm just worried about you."

"You're overreacting. I'm fine."

"Yeah, going to the ER twice in the span of three days is fine." His use of sarcasm was not lost on her.

Grissom unlocked and opened the door to Sara's apartment. She unwrapped his arm from around her waist, and dropped down on the couch.

"Does your head hurt?" Grissom asked, concern obvious in his voice, as he sat down next to her.

"A little," she said, curling up next to him.

"Want me to get you some Advil?" Grissom asked, placing his arm around her shoulders.

"No, it doesn't hurt that badly," she said.

"Are you sure? If you take it now, it will help you sleep," Grissom said, he knew she needed rest, if she took the medicine now it would stop the pain from keeping her up, and waking her up if it worsened.

"I'm fine, Gil," she said. After a few minutes of silence, listening to the clock ticking the time away, Grissom decided to broach the subject of the accident.

"So, what caused this little accident anyway?"

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**A/N: **So, please review! I really have to go now. Bye! : )


	33. Discussion

**Disclaimer: **I own nothing!

**A/N: **I'm sorry I haven't updated recently. I try to update every other day, but I had a busy week (so much homework and school projects). And I was trying to work through a bit of writer's block. Have any of you seen the extended preview for next week's new CSI episode?? I have to say, it was quite upsetting, I'm hoping it won't turn out the way it seems. Well, here's the next chapter. Again, I'm sorry I didn't update sooner, I dislike people that don't update regularly too.

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"_So, what caused this little accident anyway?"_

"I swerved the car and hit a pole. What more is there to it?" Sara stated.

"Why'd you swerve?"

"This lady appeared in the middle of the road. I didn't even see her walk into the street, I guess that's what happens when you talk on the phone and drive at the same time," she laughed a little. "I swerved to the right to avoid her, then, I couldn't get the car back on course."

"What did the woman look like?" Grissom asked, tucking a stray strand of hair behind Sara's ear, her head still rested on his shoulder.

"Why does it matter?"

"I'm just curious."

"Well, I didn't pay much attention to what she looked like. But she was dressed in all black, and even from the short distance away from her I was, I couldn't make out any of her facial features." Suddenly it clicked in her head, and she shot up into a seated position, pain running through her neck to her head. Her hand shot to her forehead as she cringed. Grissom pulled her back down to him.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

"I just realized something… I need to go e-mail Noreen."

"Why?"

"Because I think what I saw in the street was her."

"Who?" Grissom was clueless as to where she was going with this.

"The ghost."

"Sara, don't get ahead of yourself." Grissom figured she was just tired and not thinking straight. Then he remembered the pictures he had brought from shift. "I'll be right back," he said, getting up from the couch and disappearing down the hallway.

Upon returning to the living room, Sara was leaning against the back of the couch, eyes closed. Grissom placed the pictures down on the coffee table, along with the glass of water and Advil tablet he had brought for her. He thought it would be better to let her sleep, but he had to wake her up to take the Advil.

"Honey, you have to wake up," Grissom said, lightly shaking her shoulder. She yawned as her eyes fluttered open, though immediately closing them again when she felt the strong headache still there from when she sat up. He put the pill in her hand, and wrapped her other hand around the glass of water. She popped it into her mouth and gulped the water.

"Thanks," she said, after opening her eyes and looking over at Grissom.

"Come on, let's go to bed," Grissom said, taking her hand and helping her from the couch.

Sara woke up five hours later, a little past six o'clock, her headache had returned. She was in the kitchen, sitting at the table, looking through the pictures Grissom had left on the coffee table, when he walked in from the bedroom.

"What are you looking at?" Grissom asked, sitting down across from her.

"The pictures that were on the coffee table," she said. She picked up another photo and studied it carefully. She passed it to Grissom; it was the photo of the bedroom. "That's sort of what the lady in the street looked like," Sara said, referring to the dark shadow in the picture.

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**A/N: **Puh-leaze Review!! : )


	34. Date and Time

**Disclaimer:** If I owned CSI then we wouldn't have to wait a week for each new episode.

**A/N:** So, here is the next chapter. I can't wait to find out the results for the US presidential election (totally off topic, I know). It was nice because I was off from school for that today too. I don't know if you guys know this, but I put up another story "Single for 4 Weeks". Check it out and review, it'll make me happy!! Okay, and here's the new chapter...

Grissom studied the photos once again while Sara sent Noreen another e-mail. They still had four hours before they had to be at work, and Sara wanted to see if Noreen could possibly come to speak with them tomorrow morning or evening, right after or before shift.. The e-mail she sent read:

Noreen,

A few things have come up and I was hoping you could come speak with us tomorrow, maybe. My boyfriend's townhouse was trashed and we believe the ghost might be responsible. Earlier today I was in a minor car accident and we are also pretty sure that the ghost is involved in that too. Please inform me if you can come by either early morning or evening tomorrow. I hope to hear from you soon.

--Sara Sidle

Sara barely stood from the couch when her e-mail sounded with a new message. Opening it up, it read:

Sara,

I will gladly come by tomorrow. Evening would be better for me if that's fine with you. I've investigated a few cases in the past where the entities become violent or destructive. Only twice have I worked a case where someone was physically injured. I hope to hear that you were okay after the accident.

Noreen

In her reply, Sara included the time they could meet, 6 pm, the address of Grissom's townhouse, and that she was fine after the crash. Noreen replied again within a matter of seconds.

Sara,

That's fine. I'll meet you there at six. I'm looking forward to speaking with you. My brother, Steve, will be tagging along.

Noreen

Sara confirmed the information once again, then closed and set her laptop down on the coffee table. Walking up to where Grissom still sat at the kitchen table, she said, "Noreen can meet with us tomorrow. I gave her the address to your place since you had mentioned we could go back there today."

Grissom turned to face her. "Yeah, that's fine. We'll have to clean it up a bit though before she comes… What time did you tell her?" Grissom asked.

"6 o'clock. I figured that would give us time to get some sleep and get ready for work before they arrive. Oh, her brother, Steve, will also be coming. Since I don't know how long this will take I thought it would be good to have a bit more than three hours open for our meeting," Sara said.

"Okay," Grissom said, while stacking the photos in a pile and placing them on the table by his car keys. He needed to remember to bring them to his townhouse. "I'm going to go get ready for work," Grissom said, ending his sentence by kissing Sara tenderly on the lips. "Care to join me in the shower?" he asked, pulling away slightly.

"Don't mind if I do," she said, following him down the hallway like an eager puppy.

**A/N: **Puh-leaze Review!!! It's so nice to see those review alert messages in my inbox!


	35. Clean Up

**Disclaimer: **I do not own anything. If I did, I definitely wouldn't of left Thursday's episode hanging like that.

**A/N: **I'm sorry I haven't update totally recently. I've been busy with a lot of homework, studying and what not, then when I wanted to use the computer it would always freeze up. So, here's the next chapter.

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Shift was normal, well, as normal as working with dead bodies could possibly be. Sara and Grissom had worked a double homicide, it was pretty much an open and shut case, though Sara had been impatiently waiting during the last few hours of work for shift to end. Finally, everyone was seated around the break room table, eagerly waiting for the clock to strike eight, so they could all leave.

"Anyone want to go to the diner for some breakfast?" Nick asked.

"Sure, I could use some food," Warrick said.

"I'll tag along too, I have no where else to be," Catherine put in.

"I'll come to," Greg added in.

"Are you guys coming?" Nick asked and they all looked over to Sara and Grissom. By now word of their relationship had gotten around, but surprisingly, Ecklie had yet to broach the subject with either of them.

"Ummm, no thanks, we have something to take care of," Sara said, glancing over at Grissom.

"Oh come on, I was hoping to grill you guys on your relationship. I've had tons of questions stored up for months," Catherine said, slightly annoyed.

"Catherine, you've only known for a few days," Grissom said, giving her a confused glance.

"So? Doesn't mean I didn't have questions before that," Catherine said, shrugging her shoulders.

"What do you guys have to get to that's so important that you can't spend an hour with us for breakfast?" Greg said, mock hurt in his voice.

"We have a meeting with someone tonight," Grissom said.

Catherine interrupted, "And what does that have to do with breakfast in the morning?" "We have some things to do before tonight," Sara said.

No one failed to notice the clock hands land on the twelve and the eight.

"Okay, well, see you guys tonight then. We'll be at the diner if you change your minds," Warrick said.

"Okay, bye," Sara said, as she headed quick to the locker room to fetch her jacket.

They went straight to Grissom's townhouse to get started with the cleaning. Though Sara was a little hesitant at the front door, she followed Grissom in, gently clutching his hand. Things were a bit moved around from Catherine and Warrick investigating, but everything was still flung all over the floor in various places.

"You want to start with the downstairs, while I work on the upstairs?" Sara asked, as she slipped off her shoes and jacket, heading over to the staircase.

"Sure," Grissom said, as he hung his jacket up. Sara walked up the stairs, picking up or straightening out the framed butterflies on the walls as she went, thankfully none of them were damaged. Grissom picked the throw pillows up from the floor then replaced them back on the couch, and placed books back on shelves, then neatening the rest of the living room. A few picture frames were broken, but otherwise there wasn't much damage, it just looked like a tornado ripped through the house. It took them four long hours to get everything back to the way it was before.

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**A/N: **Puh-leaze Review!!! I love them! ** :)  
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	36. Arrival

**Disclaimer: **I don't own them, but I do like to pick on them once in awhile. Don't worry, they will be returned safe and sound (maybe a little scarred).

**A/N: **I am so, so, so sorry for the delay in updates. My Oma (grandma) is moving from her house soon and she'll be living at my house for 2-3 weeks so I've been busy helping my mom with that stuff, and then I had tennis today, and I've had tons of homework and tests, and- blah, blah, blah, okay, you guys really don't care for my explanation, you just want the next chapter. So without further ado, here it is... Oh and thanks again for all the reviews! They make me happy!!

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It was 4:30 in the afternoon when Sara awoke. Grissom had set the alarm clock to go off at four; apparently she hadn't heard it, though now it was Grissom who was trailing his fingers up her arm gentle trying to wake her up. The tickling sensation woke her, and her eyes met Grissom's. He had already showered and dressed, -though he was still wearing sweats- she could tell because his hair was still damp. She turned to lie on her side, her head propped up on her hand. Giving her a quick 'good morning' kiss, he then asked, "Did you sleep well?"

"Yeah," she said, nodding her head slightly. "But I'm still tired." They hadn't gotten a full night's rest. Only four hours, which was three less than what they usually got.

"Well, tomorrow we have the night off, so you can sleep more then. Right now you have to get ready." She pushed herself up to a seated position on the bed.

"I'll go work on something for us to eat while you shower, okay?" Grissom asked, getting up and heading to the door.

"Sure," Sara replied, climbing out of bed.

Sara was pulling her hair into a ponytail when the doorbell rang.

"I'll get it!" she yelled down the hall to Grissom who was cleaning up the bedroom one last time.

Getting to the door, she peeked quickly out the window. Two people -a man and a woman- she presumed they were Noreen and Steve.

"Hi," she greeted them, holding the door open. As they stepped inside she took the time to observe them. Noreen, her black hair pulled back much like Sara's, was tall for a woman, and she wasn't wearing high heels. She was dressed in black capri pants and a light purple blouse. A silver chain with black stones hung like a spiderweb from her neck, along with a matching bracelet on her wrist, but she wore no rings. Steve stepped in alongside her. His hair was brown, balding ever-so-slightly, and he was wearing black pants with a grey button-down shirt. Black dress shoes on his feet, and a wedding ring on his left ring finger. Sara felt a bit out of place -though she lived here- in her black velour sweat suit and her silver and gold butterfly necklace.

"I'm Sara," she said, shaking Noreen's hand.

"I'm Noreen, and this is my brother Steve." Sara shook Steve's hand. "We run our paranormal investigators business, along with a few other relatives."

"You all have a thing for ghosts, then?" Sara asked.

"You could say that," Noreen said. Sara turned to look up the stairs.

"Gil," she called. "Noreen and Steve are here."

"I'll be down in a second," he called to her. She nodded her head, though he couldn't see her. Sara led them over to the couch.

"Do you guys want anything to drink?"

"Sure. Water's fine," Steve replied. Sara went to the kitchen to fetch four bottles of water.

When she came back Grissom was introducing himself. She was relieved to see that he had changed from his sweats to a pair of black dress pants and a red button down shirt, similar to Steve's grey one. Sara handed them each a bottle of water, keeping one for herself.

Noreen and Steve were sitting on the couch, while Sara and Grissom were seated on the love seat across from them, the coffee table in between.

"So," Noreen started. "I know you explained some things in your e-mails, but let's start from the beginning. Shall we?"

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**A/N: **Puh-leaze Review!! :) Happy Veteran's/Remembrance Day everyone!! :)

PS: If you get a chance, check out the song- You Belong With Me by Taylor Swift. **Sara lover554 **aka Amy brought up a good point. And I agree. Doesn't the song resemble a Grissom/Lady Heather relationship? I sure think so...


	37. Chatting

**Disclaimer:** Like I said, I like to bother and tease them a bit, but they're not mine...

**A/N:** I'm sorry again for not updating sooner. I hope this makes up for it. And to anyone who is still reading this, I hope you enjoy!

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"_So," Noreen started. "I know you explained some things in your e-mails, but let's start from the beginning. Shall we?"_

It reminded Sara of an interrogation as she went on to explain the things that happened which could've been related to whatever was in their house. She started with the case they had worked at the abandoned mental hospital. She mentioned the disappearing keys, the dream incident, the person in the mirror reflection and through the window, and she talked a bit about the accident, plus anything they experienced in between. Then Grissom showed them the crime scene photos of their trashed home.

"I've seen these kinds of images before," Noreen said referring to the odd things in the pictures. "It shows an evil spirit. Basically someone who crossed over on bad terms. They could've been murdered, innocently killed, or something like that, and they want revenge."

"The dark figure in one of these pictures could've been mistaken for part of the group of paranormal 'shadow people'. It's a good thing it's not one of those," Steve said.

"'Shadow people'?" Grissom asked, more than slightly confused.

"They're one of the many things in the paranormal world. Though 'shadow people' were never actually people in the real world, they are extremely dangerous. If you come across one, they kind of latch onto you, and just cause trouble in general. But they are very dangerous," Noreen explained, keeping the paranormal terms to a minimum so they would understand what she was talking about. After a few seconds of silence, Sara spoke up.

"So, what do we do about this?"

"Well… I think it would be in your best interest to have us come tomorrow night or sometime soon, to evaluate exactly what is in your house. We'd bring our equipment, cameras, camcorders, and so on. Our cousin, Ryan, who also works with us, would come along. And we'd do some investigating," Steve said.

Grissom nodded, "We're not working tomorrow night, so that works for us."

"Okay, then we'll come tomorrow. About what time?" Steve asked.

"About eight?" Sara said, looking at Grissom for confirmation, he nodded.

"So we'll see you tomorrow at eight then," Noreen said, as they all stood from their seats.

"Oh," Grissom just remembered something he wanted to ask. "Do you know why this ghost tends to torment Sara more than me? It has showed itself to her a few times, though I've only seen it once." Grissom put his arm around Sara and pulled her close.

"Well, most entities gain energy or power through someone's fear or belief," Noreen said.

Grissom nodded, "Well, that would make sense. She believes in paranormal activity more than I do."

"That would explain it," Steve said. By now they had made their way to the front door. Grissom held it open as they headed out.

"So, we'll see you tomorrow night at eight," Steve said, turning around to face them once more.

"Sounds good," Sara said. "It was nice meeting you. Goodnight." They all shook hands one more time.

As Noreen and Steve got into their car, Grissom closed and locked the door.

"So, what did you think of them?" Grissom asked, as he turned to face Sara.

"They're nice, I think they'll be a big help with-" she cringed slightly as a headache was coming on. Since her 'little' (as she always referred to it) accident, she had been taking painkillers none stop. She hadn't been bothered by a headache for a few hours, so hadn't taken any pills.

"Let's get you something for that, and then head to the lab," he said, kissing her forehead and then her lips.

Pulling away, she said, "Okay," as they headed upstairs.

Only, they didn't notice the ghostly figure peering at them from a spot slightly hidden by the hallway across the room.

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**A/N: **Puh-leaze Review! I'll be your best friend (and I'll update quicker, hint, hint)!! :)


	38. Not Normal

**Disclaimer: **Not mine!

**A/N:** Here's the next chapter!! I hope this pleases!!

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Sara was slightly disappointed that their day off would now be occupied, but she hoped that the sooner things were investigated the sooner a solution would arise.

Shift seemed to drag by as they worked a B&E and a double homicide, not much on the exciting side. Sara and Greg had been stuck with the B&E, while everyone else was at a casino working the double homicide. The B&E was a simple open and shut case. Some teenager needed money and decided to break into a local convenience store, it was obvious from the beginning he was a rookie at this. His prints were everywhere, he didn't even know the video cameras were watching him the whole time, plus, he wasn't even smart enough to try and leave the scene once the cops were called. Let's just say it wasn't much of a case to go down in history.

The clock ticked slowly by as it finally read that shift was over. As she was in her car driving home (her car had been fixed within a day of the accident), Grissom called to say that he would be putting in some overtime for the double homicide. Apparently the killer was the opposite of the rookie who had robbed the convenience store, obviously, he had killed before.

"Well, it'll be better to stay and work on this case now then have to go in tonight and miss our paranormal rendezvous," he said to her.

"Okay... Do you have any idea when you'll be finished?" Sara asked, pulling into the driveway of the townhouse and shutting the engine off.

"Maybe in two hours. I'm gong to sort through some of this evidence and start to get some things processed and I'll try to get home right after that," he said as he entered the layout room only to be greeted by boxes of evidence. "Make that three."

"I'll let you get back to work then. I'll talk to you later." Sara said.

"Okay. I'll see you soon. Bye," Grissom said, ending the call.

Sara exited the car and headed to the front door. As she made her way up the walkway something caught her eye. She turned her head to get a better view of the sidewalk, and the woman standing there. The woman was staring at the townhouse but yet her facial expression showed her to be deep in thought, not really seeing what her eyes fell upon.

Sara walked slowly over to her.

"Miss, can I help you?" she asked, seeing if maybe the woman was lost and needed directions. A chill ran up her back as she watched the older woman, waiting for her to respond. Something was strangely familiar about her, but Sara was sure she had never met her before. Dressed in grey, the woman's skin seemed to match the color of the fabric and her eyes were dull and lifeless, if there wasn't just the bit of color there they would've been empty.

The woman shook her head no, finally exiting her trance and meeting Sara's gaze, but she looked away quickly. The woman turned on her heel and headed in the other direction down the sidewalk. Sara thought it strange that she didn't say anything more, not like she said much to begin with. She brushed it off as odd and headed back to her task of unlocking the front door.

She paused before entering the house, looking back over to the direction the lady was headed. She scanned the sidewalk and the street for her. She hadn't been walking fast, there was no way she had already turned the corner. She turned to click the lock button for the car and her gaze turned that way too, only to have her jump in surprise- and mostly fear- to see the woman now watching her from the driveway. Placing a hand over her rapidly beating heart, she closed her eyes for a moment to calm herself by repeating _it's just a lady who needs directions._ Except when she opened her eyes, the lady was gone. Now that was not normal. Sara looked quickly to her left and right and -relieved she didn't see her- rushed into the house, making sure to lock the door once she was inside.

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**A/N: **Puh-leaze Review!!! Because they make me happy!

**PS:** I posted another story! Check it out and tell me what you think of it so far!


	39. The Morning Before

**Disclaimer:** See previous chapters.

**A/N: **I am so, so, so sorry I didn't update sooner. I'm very sorry, I didn't mean to take this long with the next chapter. And I would keep apologizing but my mom, really needs the computer now. Okay, this chapter is called The Morning Before, just because it's the morning before the paranormal investigators come to investigate.

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Though it was morning and the sun was up, Grissom was surprised he didn't see any lights on in the townhouse as he pulled into the driveway. Upon entering, after unlocking the front door, he saw Sara sitting on the couch staring at the blank television screen. But he knew her well enough to know by the look on her face that she was deep in thought and whatever she was thinking about was requiring her full attention. All the blinds in the living room were shut, not letting any sunlight seep in, casting the room in an eerie darkness. When Grissom switched on the light that sat on the side table and Sara didn't even blink, he grew concerned. He sat down next to her on the couch, even crossing the path between her eyes and the television but she still didn't seem to notice him. When he turned to face her and she didn't turn to him, Grissom placed his hand lightly on her shoulder. At the sudden contact, she jumped back, but then turned to face him and she clearly relaxed.

"Didn't mean to startle you," he said.

"I guess I didn't hear you come in," she said, still seeming a bit distant.

"You okay?" he asked, bringing his hand up to gently cup her cheek.

"I'm fine…" she said.

"Sara, you and me both know that when you say you're fine, you're really anything but."

She slumped back onto the couch, his hand falling from her face to settle on her thigh. Gently squeezing it to urge her to tell him whatever was on her mind. She turned her head so their eyes met again.

"I was just thinking, that's all. There's been a lot on my mind lately," she said, sighing at the end of her sentence.

"What were you thinking about?" he asked, trying to push her to a topic.

"Just this whole ghost thing…" she paused, debating on whether to tell him about the strange lady she saw hours earlier, then deciding it would be better not to. Switching the topic, she said, "It took you longer to get home then you expected…"

"I know. I had been heading to my office to grab my things when Catherine walked in. She had wanted to question me about us," he said, gesturing between the two of them. "And you know Catherine, she insists on knowing everyone else's business. She was about to get into her game of twenty questions, but luckily when I told her that I needed to get home she let me leave. But she did say that she would be interrogating one of us soon enough," Grissom said. A few seconds of silence followed his little anecdote of his conversation with Catherine.

"We should probably go get some sleep," Grissom said, standing from the couch.

"Yeah, probably," Sara replied, also standing.

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**A/N:** Puh-leaze Review!!!


	40. Setting Up Equipment

**Disclaimer: **Not mine!

**A/N:** So sorry for not continuing sooner! School has been hectic like I've explained before. Well, here's the next chapter! I hope you enjoy it!

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Noreen and Steve, along with Ryan, arrived at the townhouse a few minutes past eight o'clock. While Ryan went to inform Grissom and Sara of their arrival, Noreen and Steve started unloading their vehicle of their equipment.

Ryan knocked lightly on the front door. A moment passed and Grissom answered it. Confused a moment as to who the man was, and then looking over his shoulder he saw Noreen and Steve at their van, and realized who it must be.

"Hi. You must be Ryan," Grissom said, shaking his hand.

"Yeah, Steve and Noreen's cousin. Nice to meet you Mr…"

"Grissom. But just call me Grissom. Nice to meet you too." To Grissom, Ryan reminded him of a slightly older Greg, with his spiked hair (the points dyed red) and his t-shirt with some band's logo on the front.

"They'll be over here in a minute," he said, pointing over his shoulder to Noreen and Steve. "I'm going to go help them unload."

"Okay," Grissom said, then turning back inside to call for Sara. "Sara! They're here!"

"Coming!" she called back to him.

Grissom brushed passed Sara, as she walked halfway down the driveway, as he helped the investigators bring in some equipment. She stood for a moment in place to breathe in the fresh air. The desert air was crisp and sent a quick chill running through her, while it seemed to nip at her bare toes.

"Hey Sara!" Noreen called to her, waving from her spot beside the vehicle. Sara waved back as she walked over to them.

"Need some help?" Sara asked when she met them on the sidewalk, the pebbles peeking through the cement scratching her bare feet.

"Sure," Noreen said cheerily, she seemed to be in a happy mood. Taking a black case, about the size of Sara's field kit, from the truck she passed it to Sara, who took it by the handle and headed back up the driveway.

Entering the house, she placed the case with the many other boxes like it, of various sizes, in the living room. Ryan entered the room, placing down a box. Sara walked over to him, having not yet introduced herself.

"Hi, I'm Sara," she said, holding out her hand.

"I'm Ryan," he said, shaking her hand.

"Noreen and Steve are your cousins, right?" Sara asked.

"Yup. The three of us run the small paranormal investigation business together," he said, as they then both headed back out the front door.

Eventually, everything was brought into the house. Noreen, Steve, and Ryan were now making their way through each room, setting up video cameras that would stay on throughout the night. Sara and Grissom were alone in the living room, just waiting to be told what to do. Noreen had said that once they were done setting up, they would be doing a walk through of the house. She said that consisted of going through each room with a video camera and cassette player, to hopefully find any EVPs. Ryan had explained a bit about the EVPs. First off, it stood for 'electronic voice phenomenon'. The cassette player would record any voices that can not be heard normally. A series of questions would be asked and recorded, waiting for an answer between each one. Later, they would play it back and see if they found anything. Along with the recordings, each room's temperature would also be documented to help locate any significant change that could indicate a foreign presence.

"You ready for this?" Grissom asked Sara, wrapping an arm around her waist.

Nodding her head, she said, "I hope they find something."

"Me too," he agreed, placing a light kiss to her temple.

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**A/N: **Please Review! It's greatly appreciated! I'm thinking of putting my stories on hold for a bit and writing a little Christmas story. Do you guys think it's a good idea?? Please let me know your thoughts on it!


	41. Damages

**Disclaimer: **Do you really have to be reassured that I don't own them?

**A/N: **Well, here is the next chapter! I hope you enjoy it!

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By ten o'clock everything was finally set up. The paranormal investigators' first plan of action was to, hopefully, record a few EVPs. The five of them were gathered into the living room, forming a circle, almost like a football team's huddle. Noreen explained, to Grissom and Sara, what they would be doing.

"Ryan will be in charge of the video camera. It's possible that the spirit will show itself at some time throughout our questioning. So he will be recording everything as we move from room to room along with the other cameras which are stationary in each room of the house," she paused for breath. "Steve will be documenting each room's temperature before, during, and after the questions are asked… I'll be using the cassette player to record the questions and EVPs. Now, sometimes the whole question thing is more effective when someone who the spirit has been around asks the questions instead of me. So I'll give you guys a few questions to ask at some point in our travels from room to room… Is everyone okay with this?" Noreen asked, she must have explained this speech many other times; she didn't even have to think about what she was saying. Everyone nodded. "Okay, so let's get started… We might as well begin in the living room." Noreen looked to her other two team members to see if they were ready to begin. At another nod of their heads Noreen started the questions.

Holding out the recording device she said, "Is there anyone here who would like to speak with us?" Then everyone was quiet, waiting for the cassette player to pick up any voices that they would later analyze. "What is your name?" Silence. "Why are you here?"

Grissom held Sara close to him as the room seemed to drop in temperature. Noreen noticed too and looked over to Steve who was writing down the present temperature and by how much it had changed. Going back to the questioning, Noreen slowly walked through the hallway, the temperature was higher here, everyone silently following her.

"Where did you come from?" she spoke again, silence following. Noreen entered the kitchen. Sara entered behind her, Grissom at her side. Another sudden drop in temperature caused a shiver to creep up Sara's spine.

"What do you want?" Noreen asked, met with silence again.

Slowly making their way through the house, after about half an hour, they reached the bedroom. Noreen asked another question, "How old are you?" Silence followed. Grissom and Sara were yet to speak, so when Sara gave Noreen a questioning look, she nodded her head.

"Why did you follow us?" Sara asked, feeling a bit stupid talking to something that she couldn't actually see. Silence again. Noreen nodded her head for Grissom to ask a question.

"How did you die?" Grissom asked. Though they already knew the answer, it was still an interesting question to ask. Silence would've followed the question if it wasn't for the sound of glass shattering. A glass butterfly figurine, which sat on a nightstand, flew across the room with the motion of someone physically throwing it. The object hit the mirror placed above the dresser across the room near where they were standing. The mirror shattered, sending glass shards flying. Everything quieted down so fast that nobody had a chance to duck away from the glass.

"Is everybody okay?" Sara asked, glancing from person to person. She spotted a gash on Noreen's wrist; she had been the closest to the mirror. "Oh, let me help you with that," Sara said, having not waited for an answer.

She led Noreen into the bathroom to clean out the cut. Noreen rinsed her wrist out in the sink, though a few glass fragments remand embedded in the wound. Sara retrieved a band-aid and tweezers from the medicine cabinet, placing each down on the countertop. Noreen picked up the tweezers and carefully removed the glass from her wrist. Rinsing it out again she then held a tissue to her wrist to halt the bleeding.

"It's not as bad as I thought," Noreen said when the bleeding.

"Yeah, I don't think it will need stitches or anything," Sara agreed. Noreen removed the tissue, tossing it into the wastebasket. As she picked the band-aid up from the counter, something in the mirror caught her eye. Slowly glancing back at the mirror she saw a woman standing in the doorway reflected in the glass, Sara had her back to the image. Noreen stared at the spirit for a moment before it turned and rushed from the doorway. Noreen quickly turned to make sure that the camera in the bathroom had recorded it. "What?" Sara asked curiously as Noreen turned back around.

"I saw it," she said simply, not at all freaked out. Noreen then continued with placing the bandage on her wrist. She and Sara were just exiting the bathroom when there was a loud bang followed by something shattering, again.

Quickly running from the bathroom, they followed the others down the hallway to Grissom's home office. Everyone looked around trying to spot what had been broken. Grissom noticed that a picture was missing from his desk. Glancing around the room for it, he spotted it near the wall. Walking over to where the object lay, he picked it up, displaying that the frame and glass had been broken.

"I guess that's what we heard," Steve said, glancing at the broken frame.

"Apparently," Grissom said. Housed in the now broken frame was a picture of Grissom and Sara taken years ago back in San Francisco.

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**A/N: **Please Review! They're greatly appreciated!! :)


	42. Strange Occurrences

**Disclaimer: **Don't ask!

**A/N: **Okay, so I am very sorry for not updating for over a month. I hadn't had any ideas and needed to watch a few paranormal related shows for some information. I was originally going to post this as two separate chapters, but I figured you guys had waited long enough for an update, and I thought you would better appreciate a long chapter. Well, I am now up past the time I should've been in bed. So here's the next chapter (FINALLY! I know, lol). Oh, and Lady Heather makes an appearance in this chapter. Just thought I'd let you know...

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One in the morning came and went before the investigators were finished, at least with the first part of their research. They had explained that one of the three of them would be in charge every two hours. That person would basically stand guard, which consisted of walking around the whole house to make sure that all of their equipment was still on and working properly. They had added motion detectors to the rooms with the most paranormal activity, where they also wouldn't have to worry about any of them walking in front of or setting the detectors off. The three investigators would be "camping out" in the townhouse living room, and in the morning they would head back to analyze all the evidence they had collected throughout the night.

"So, what should we do now?" Sara asked the group of investigators.

"…Just go about your usual routine, though I'm sure it doesn't normally start out at two in the morning, but just roll with it the best you can," Noreen said.

"Okay, so we'll leave you guys to it then," Grissom said.

"Do you guys need anything before we go up?" Sara asked.

"No, I think we have everything," Steve stated.

"Okay then. Well, good luck," Sara said. Grissom put his arm around her shoulders, and led her from the living room, leaving the three investigators to do their thing.

Sara pulled back the sheets on the bed as Grissom was in the bathroom getting ready for bed himself.

"So, do you think the recordings will reveal anything?" she spoke to him through the open bathroom door.

"I don't know. But I sure hope that if they do, we'll finally get some answers," Grissom said, reentering the bedroom.

They had been asleep for about half an hour when Sara was disturbed by a chill that was creeping its way through the room. She dazedly opened her eyes halfway, and turned over, curling into Grissom's chest, and then drawing the comforter tighter around herself. She closed her eyes but before she could settle back into her slumber, she felt a breeze blow against her face and suddenly there was an added unknown presence in the room that seemed to add tension to the air around them.

Again, she opened her eyes, only to be met by a faint, eerie white glow. Her vision, now cleared from the sleepy fog, focused on the foot of the bed. She gasped, which seemed to be the only audible sound that she could make, and hurriedly, she sat up, pushing herself against the headboard of the bed. She seemed weak under the intense scrutiny of the women's glare at the end of the bed. She just couldn't seem to tear her eyes away. Blindly, she searched with her right hand for Grissom's. The white glow of a woman took a step closer, and Sara found Grissom's wrist. While she was still rendered speechless, she attempted to wake him by squeezing his wrist until her hand started to go white, but no where near as white as the thing in front of her.

"Gil," was all she was finally able to whisper, chancing a glance at him and then back to the foot of the bed, which to her relief was missing the ghostly figure.

She shook Grissom's arm, startling him awake. His tired gaze read the fear and panic swirling in her dark eyes. He swiftly sat up, pulling her towards him. She laid her head upon his chest, only now noticing that she needed to slow her breathing down. Taking a deep breath, her second attempt for air was cut short by a sudden pressure on her ankle. She drew her legs quickly towards her chest, and Grissom's eyes shot to the end of the bed. There were two indents, as if someone was leaning there with their hands or knees. Two more appeared, this time closer to the couple, and Grissom too, drew his legs up.

As another indent appeared, Grissom shook the blanket and they suddenly disappeared. Letting out a sigh of relief, they were both startled when the blankets were yanked back from the bed, landing in a heap on the floor. Grissom and Sara jumped from the bed and hastily left the room, Grissom carefully passing the blankets while heading to the door, afraid something might reach out and grab his leg.

Sara and Grissom were both out in the hall when he slammed the bedroom door shut. He drew Sara into his arms, her head burrowed in between his neck and shoulder. She clutched her arms around him, and he held her tighter.

"Please let this all be a dream…" he muttered under his breath. His eyes closed for a brief moment in time, as he held close to Sara's shaking form, and took a deep breath, his sense of smell engulfed with the sweet scent of her hair.

When his eyes opened, he watched as the wood on their bedroom door was pushed out and transformed to an imprint of a human face, along with two hands reaching out. Thinking he was hallucinating, Grissom shook his head, ridding the image from his mind, but when he opened his eyes it was still there. He stared for a moment longer out of curiosity before the fear of the situation registered in his mind.

A sinking feeling hit his stomach and he grabbed Sara's arm, pulling her with him down the hallway and to the stairs, just telling her that they "had to get out of here". Now, he really felt that whatever this thing was could indeed harm either he or Sara.

Their trek down the stairs alerted Steve, who had been keeping guard at the moment, of their presence. He met up with them at the front door.

"Steve, I really don't think this 'thing' wants us here. I'm worried for her, our, safety," Grissom said.

"If you leave it will follow you," Steve said, "like it followed you from the crime scene."

"I'm willing to take that chance," Grissom said, while passing Sara her jacket and grabbing his. "Please just find out what it will take to get rid of it… We'll be back by nine," Grissom said, grabbing his car keys and cell-phone, along with Sara's bag from the side-table. They were out the door before Steve could warn them that the entity might harm others in their presence as well.

"Where are we going to go?" Sara asked, as they both got into the Tahoe parked in the driveway.

"Do you mind if I call Heather and ask for a favor?" Grissom said, as he pulled out his phone and dialed Heather's number. Sara and Heather had been on mutual ground ever since they had established, and Sara had understood, that the only relationship between he and Heather was a friendship.

"Ahhh… Doctor Grissom," Heather said into the phone, not sounding at all like she had been woken up. "What do I owe the pleasure of this phone call?"

"Heather, I was wondering if you could do me and Sara a favor."

"Sure," she said.

"Do you happen to have an extra bedroom?"

"You know I do. When will you be needing it?"

"…Fifteen minutes," Grissom said.

"Why so sudden?" she asked, curious as to why they needed a place to stay.

"I'll explain when we get there."

"Okay," she said, before ending the call.

Heather greeted them at the door before Grissom knocked. Opening the door further to allow them entrance, she took in their appearances: Sara was dressed in purple and navy blue striped sleep pants, her hair done up in a messy ponytail, and, based on he front of her jacket-covered shirt, a purple tank-top. Grissom too, looked as though he had just rolled out of bed. Wearing dark green sleep pants and a grey t-shirt slightly hidden by his jacket, his grey curls were matted on his head. Heather led them to the living room, placing their jackets on the black, wrought-iron coat rack.

Grissom and Sara took a seat close to each other on the red couch placed in the middle of the room. Sara was trembling, but if it was from the cold or fear, Heather couldn't tell. She passed Grissom a blanket hung over a chair as she sat down in the leather one across from them. Grissom wrapped the blanket around Sara's shoulders, and then gently pulled her to lean back on his chest, her head dropping to his shoulder.

"Close your eyes and rest, sweetheart," he whispered soothingly in her ear. Her eyes closed to his gentle command, and he then moved his attention from Sara, to the woman seated across from him.

"What has you so worried?" Heather asked him, upon noticing the concern flickering in his eyes. Her tone was slightly hushed as she noticed Sara's breathing start to even out.

"Well, I'm sure this will sound… strange but, our house is being haunted," Grissom said.

"Haunted?" she questioned.

"Yeah, we actually have three paranormal investigators there now," Grissom explained.

"Then what brings you here?" Heather asked.

"I don't think it's safe there as long as that thing is there," Grissom said.

"And this paranormal stuff just started happening now?"

"Well, the ghost followed us from a crime scene."

"So you're investigating the ghost's murder?"

"Not exactly, the murder happened over 20 years ago. We had been called for two dead bodies, and she was not one of them," Grissom briefly brought up the case at the mental hospital.

"Do you have any ideas as to why she went from the crime scene to your home?"

"None what-so-ever, we're waiting on the paranormal team to finish their research at the house, and then analyze everything collected… And that could take awhile." Grissom said. Sara turned slightly against him, mumbling in her sleep.

"Maybe I should lead you to the guest bedroom now?" Heather asked.

"That's probably a good idea," Grissom said, carefully standing from his seat on the couch, making sure not to wake Sara. Hooking an arm under her knees, and positioning the other behind her back, he gently lifted her from the couch.

Heather led him down a long hallway with numerous doors. The last creaked as she pushed it open to reveal a bedroom. The bed was neatly made with blood-red sheets and a slightly darker comforter, gold and red pillows were strewn over the head of the bed. Against one of the red painted walls was a maple dresser which matched the rest of the bedroom set, including the nightstands and desk pushed into the corner.

Heather drew down the blankets on the bed and Grissom placed Sara down, wrapping the sheets and comforter tightly around her body. Grissom shifted his attention back to Heather.

"Thank you for letting us stay here," he said.

"It's my pleasure," Heather said, turning her back to them and leaving the guest bedroom, closing the door behind her.

Grissom silently climbed into bed on the other side of Sara. Drawing her sleeping form close in his arms, she looked so peaceful: all of the day's worries gone, her lips slightly pouting in sleep, and her breathing a calming rhythm. He lightly kissed her forehead, and then her pouting lips. He watched as the corners of her mouth rose a little in a small smile, and then dropped again as sleep completely over took her.

Grissom closed his eyes, he too letting sleep overcome him, if only for a few hours.

**-C_S_I-G_S_R_-C_S_I-G_S_R_-C_S_I-G_S_R_-C_S_I-G_S_R_-C_S_I-G_S_R_-C_S_I-G_S_R_-**

**A/N: **Please Review! Because I stayed up past my bedtime for this :)


	43. Situations Made Worse

**Disclaimer:** Not mine, never will be, blah blah blah. You get the point.

**A/N: **So, here's another chapter. I go back to school tomorrow and I kept telling myself that I had to update this story before I go back, and I did. I also said that I would complete a story, but... that never happened. Oh well... If I didn't mention this already, there is a poll on my profile, check it out! Thanks again to everyone who reviewed!

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Sara awoke in an unfamiliar room, but concern left her mind when she felt the familiar weight of Grissom's arm over her waist and his breath tickling her neck. Suddenly, as if it were a gust of wind, all the night's events flooded back to her, though slightly in a haze. She turned over to lay on her side now able to face Grissom. She met his eyes, slightly surprised, expecting him to have still been asleep, but clearly he wasn't.  
"Hey," he said quietly. "Did you sleep some?"  
She nodded her head where it lay on his shoulder. She placed her hand on his chest, spreading her fingers.  
"Did you sleep at all?" she asked.  
"A little," he said, covering her hand with his. "Are you still freaked out?"  
"Not as much, but yeah... Gil, please, I don't want to go back there..." she said.  
"Honey, we have to. I'm sure Noreen, Steve, and Ryan will have everything under control. Everything will be back to normal by the end of this week, I promise," he said, lifting her hand to his mouth and kissing the palm. She knew she couldn't rely heavily on his promise, this was a situation that none of them had enough control over to end. He wrapped his arm around her back and she visibly winced.  
"Sweetheart, what's wrong?" he asked.  
"My back hurts, it's probably just from the mattress," she said. Her back felt painfully stiff.

They were interrupted by an ear-splitting scream that erupted through the house.

"Heather…" Grissom said concern obvious in his voice. He and Sara jumped from the bed and raced out of the room and down the hall.

Grissom knocked on the bedroom door, but when he got no response he threw it opened. The sight before them was terrifying. Heather was pressed into the bed, as white as the sheet below her, and she seemed to be struggling with an invisible force. Grissom and Sara quickly came to her side. Heather's arms were pinned to her side, and her eyes, glazed over in fear and panic, shot straight to Grissom. Grissom struggled to remove her from her current position on the bed, unable to fight off the invisible force. Sara attempted to move Heather's arms from the mattress she was pinned to.

Suddenly, Heather was released from the death grip, and, her throat burning, she sucked in a few deep breaths, coughing as she did so. Grissom and Sara helped her to sit up against the headboard of the bed and after a moment, Sara went to fetch Heather a glass of water, and Grissom proceeded to ask her what happened.

"I awoke because I thought someone was calling my name," she paused for breath. "When I opened my eyes there was a white glow coming through the cracks of the closed doorway," another pause to catch her breath. "And then suddenly I was struggling to breathe." Heather tried to shrug it off, but it was obvious enough to Grissom to tell she was disturbed by the event.

Sara reentered the room, glass of water in hand, and gave it to Heather who smiled her thanks. When Sara and Grissom went to leave the room to give her a moment, she quickly followed them from the room and went down the hallway to the safety of her home office.

Sara and Grissom retreated back to the guest room. Sitting down on the bed, Grissom relied what Heather had told him to Sara.

"I don't think we should stay here any longer. Clearly this thing followed us again and tried to harm Heather," Grissom stated.

"Yeah, we should leave soon… I wonder how the night went back at the townhouse. I hope they got something," Sara said. Just as she finished her sentence Grissom's cell-phone rang.

"Hello," he said into the phone. "Hi Steve."

Sara decided to go take a quick shower while Grissom was on the phone, sure that he would pass on any information. As she stood in the bathroom attached the guest bedroom, she could still hear Grissom's side of the conversation. Turning the shower on, while waiting for the water to get to the right temperature she stripped off her clothing. Testing the water with her hand, she then climbed into the tub and pulled the curtain around.

Letting the water wash over her from head to toe a sharp sting of pain shot up and down her back. She gritted her teeth at the pain, as she turned the opposite way from the spray of the shower. Her hand glided along her skin, around to her back. To the left of the center of her back she felt a gash that ran vertically at least six inches.

"Gil!" she shouted to him in panic.

"Steve, can you hold on a minute?" Grissom said, as he placed the phone down on the bed and opened the bathroom door. Sara moved the shower curtain and turned so he could see her back. He was speechless as to what he saw there. There were two sets of three what looked to be scratch marks, three of them were about six-inches long and the others were about four inches. He touched one of the red scratches gently with his finger, she winced at the contact.

"How the hell did those get there?" Grissom asked as Sara turned to face him.

"…What is it?" she asked. Helping her from the tub, he brought her to the mirror.

"Oh my god," she said, looking over her shoulder at the image in the mirror. "Do you think it was…" she trailed off.

"What else could it be from?" Grissom asked. Sara shrugged. Cupping her face gently with his hands, he said, "Get dressed and then we'll go find Heather and see if she has something we could clean those cuts out with… Steve is still on the phone, I'll quickly inform him of what happened and tell him when we should be back at the townhouse." He kissed Sara lightly on the lips, pulling away to let her get dressed.

**_TBC_**

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

**A/N:** Okay, sort of a strange place to stop, but, if you review I'll continue! :)


	44. Before the Evidence Review

**Disclaimer:** Not mine and never will be. No point in hoping.

**A/N:** Happy Halloween! I thought it would be fitting to update this story on Halloween. I can not apologize enough for how long it has taken me to update this. I'm so sorry! I know where this story is going, I've known since the beginning, it's just hard to put into words, especially since my muse ran away. I've been waiting for it to return. I know this is really short, but it's just so you know that I have not given up on this. I figure if I get something new out there, it will get me writing again. Thank you to everyone who has left a review! It means so much!

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

As Grissom and Sara pulled up to the townhouse, Steve and Ryan were loading their van with equipment. With a quick hello to the two men, they headed up the stoop and into the house through the opened door, kept ajar by a box of audio tapes. Noreen came into sight a moment later as she walked down the stairs carrying the cameras which had been positioned in various locations on the second level of the house.

"Hey," Noreen said in greeting as she came down the stairs. "Okay, so we've gathered all of our equipment, and we'll bring all of the evidence to our office for processing… It will take a few days to comb through it all, but hopefully afterward we'll have some answers." Noreen grabbed the box holding the front door open. "We'll give you a call in… Let's say three days, maybe sooner. As of now, this is our only case to go over so we should get everything done soon."

"Okay," Sara said. Grissom grabbed the last box for Noreen and followed her back out the front door.

Placing the rest of the equipment into their vehicle, Noreen closed the back doors.

"Now, sometimes our investigations anger the spirits and sometimes they don't seem to realize we were there. If the house stays quiet for the next few days, don't take that to mean that the entity has left, because more than likely it hasn't," Noreen explained. "Watch your backs," she said to Grissom and Sara.

"Okay. And you really think you'll be done going through everything in three days?" Sara questioned.

"Well, there are three of us and about ten hours of evidence to go through, video, audio, thermal, etc. But yeah, I think we'll have it done," Noreen said. Reaching out to shake both of their hands she said, "Hopefully next time I speak with you, we'll have some answers."

The next three days passed as Sara and Grissom went through their normal routines. Through the lab they were followed with curious stares, along with whispers in their wake whenever they passed a group of lab techs, or investigators from dayshift. Surely Ecklie knew about their relationship now. It seemed the whole lab had found out. While work was the same, with some awkwardness, their house remained calm and quiet, like Noreen had suggested it might. Grissom and Sara fretted over what the spirit would possibly do next.

Sara and Grissom were relieved when the call from Noreen finally came. Informing them that they'd examined and analyzed all of the collected evidence. Noreen recited the office address and told them to come by so they could discuss their findings.

_**TBC**_

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

**A/N:** I will continue this as soon as I can. There are 2-3 chapters left depending on how much I put in each.


	45. The Plan of Action

**Disclaimer:** Not mine. I do not own CSI.

**A/N:** I am sooo sorry that this has taken so long to update. Life has managed to get in the way and while I know that's not much of an excuse, it's the best one I have. Yesterday I decided I was going to update this so I put on Ghost Adventures and started writing :) I had planned to post this last night but FF wouldn't let me log on. It aggrivated me. And then when I was checking it over again today, I found that I had already written parts of this chapter months ago. So I had to combine that with what I wrote last night and then re-edit it. This is a longer chapter than I expected, but that's good right?

**CSICSICSI**

The room was set up conference style, which was fitting enough for discussion and evidence review. Televisions and computers and audio equipment were scattered throughout the colorless room, adding black splotches of color with blinking red lights. Noreen and Steve were seated at the table, a laptop positioned so everyone could see the screen.

"So we had already walked you guys through what we would be doing during the night of the investigation," Steve began. "The walk-throughs, question and answer sessions, etcetera… We reviewed days worth of audio and visual evidence recovered from various areas of your house... Besides what you already know had occurred that night, we found a few things that we didn't see during the actual investigation... The audio evidence collected was enhanced but we didn't catch any unexplained noises or any replies during the various question and answer sessions throughout the night," Steve explained to Sara and Grissom who sat at the other side of the table.

"Is that… unusual? To turn up nothing in terms of audio?" Sara inquired.

"Well, yes. It happens all the time. But in this case, while we were disappointed with the lack of E.V.P.s, it was made up for by what was caught on film. It has happened before that even highly active areas go silent when faced with attention and unfamiliar people… Though based on descriptions we found about the haunting of the mental institution that you believe the ghost came from, the entity didn't seem shy in speech," Noreen explained.

"We'd like to show you what was caught on camera," Steve said, gesturing to the computer. Grissom shifted uncertainly in the cushioned chair. Hands hidden beneath the table, he unconsciously wrapped his fingers around Sara's. She squeezed back.

"Now, pairing up with the time stamp that these various scenes were recorded, we also documented significant drops in temperature. This frequently occurs when an entity has to gather all the energy it can to be able to make contact with us," Noreen said.

The digital time stamp on the video skipped ahead a few hours as Steve pressed fast-forward; it stopped when he hit play. The screen showed a view through the center of the bathroom pointed straight at the open doorway. Noreen was slightly in the left of the frame as she placed a bandage over the cut on her wrist that had occurred earlier during the night of the investigation. After a moment, a misty image of a woman's figure formed in the doorway. Grissom and Sara watched in amazement as the mist gathered just enough to be an opaque silhouette of a woman for only a moment. As quickly as the figure appeared, it flashed down the hallway and vanished.

"None of the other cameras picked up on the spirit directly after it left the doorway," Noreen explained as Steve proceeded to bring up another excerpt of footage from later that night captured on another camera. This time the bedroom doorway was in the camera's frame.

"A drop in the temperature of the master bedroom was recorded before the entity appeared," Steve said as he pressed play.

The white mist, again, took shape, in the doorway and moved closer to the edge of the bed. It stood in place, staring at the bed's occupants. The misty figure of a woman slowly vanished from the frame. Moments later, the end of the bed, which was in the camera's view, showed indents as if someone was crawling onto the bed, causing the parts of the mattress to depress. The indents moved progressively higher up the bed and then stilled. Three seconds ticked by before the blankets were pulled off the bed and into a heap on the floor. Steve stopped the recording.

"Now, this piece that we're going to show you occurred a few minutes earlier from the time that you said the impression of a face appeared through the wood door of your bedroom. It's from the camera that was set up in the hallway," Noreen explained. The excerpt was only about ten seconds long.

"Could you play that again?" asked Grissom. Steve rewound the clip and hit play. The camera shook as if someone had lifted it from the stand, and then it stilled, now pointing towards a wall. It had been shifted in order to keep the bedroom door out of the camera's view.

"So you didn't get the face impression through the door on camera?" Grissom asked, disappointed.

"No, and that would've been quite something to see," Noreen said. "But we did catch the picture from the office being thrown off the desk and hitting the wall."

Steve brought up the clip. A mist did not form this time. The picture frame was lifted into the air, floating freely for two seconds before it was launched across the room and into the wall. The sound of glass shattering was caught along with the bang of the frame against the wall. Steve closed the video screen.

"All that is definitely something…other worldly," Sara said. Her voice was not filled with fear but shock.

"Now that we have the proof of what has been occurring, we can go about trying to get rid of it," Steve said.

"How, exactly, do we do that?" Grissom asked.

"Well, there are a few things you can do. They all work sometimes, though they don't all work all of the time. Most of these methods are variations of blessing a place that is believed to be inhabited by an entity. I would suggest you have the house blessed by a priest. Sometimes it works completely, sometimes the activity stops for a short time, or sometimes it simply lessens the activity, but I would suggest you start with a house blessing and see how successful it turns out to be for your current situation," Steve said.

"Are you religious people? Would you have a priest that you could ask to perform the blessing?" Noreen asked, shifting papers. Grissom's eyes flickered to Sara as he contemplated what to say.

"No… We were both raised Catholic but…religion doesn't fit into a big part of our lives," Grissom said. Noreen flipped pages before handing him a list of names.

"Those are names of priests from parishes close to where you live and that have performed blessings numerous times before. So, at least they know what they're doing when they step into this kind of situation," Noreen explained, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. "It usually takes a few weeks for a priest to be able to come to bless the house because it's done for people, who aren't dealing with the paranormal, on a fairly regular basis. But once you find a priest willing to do it, we can discuss the situation with them and see if they can move up the date of the blessing."

"Are you guys…part of that?" Sara asked, her mind wrapping around the new information.

"On some occasions: yes. And this will be one of those occasions, if you prefer that we're there?" Noreen asked.

"Yes," Sara and Grissom spoke at the same time.

"Okay. Give us a call when you have the blessing set up and we'll help any way we can until this is over," Steve said. Grissom shook Steve's hand in thanks as he and Sara stood, leaving to pursue the next task at hand: finding a priest who wasn't afraid to enter a haunted house.

It was the third church that they had set foot in that day. Shamefully, it was more than either of them could say they'd been in over the past seven years. The two other priests they had spoken with explained that they were busy for the next three weeks with weddings and communions and confirmations and baptisms and daily mass and funerals, and the list kept going. Who would've guessed that it would be so hard to book a priest? The priest at the current church they were in, Father Benjamin Moore, led Grissom and Sara through the aisles of pews, to his small office near the church's library.

Of the three rooms, for the three priests, that they had been in so far, each was decorated similarly. A cross hung over the door with paintings of saints spread among walls that were not hidden by tall, dark wooden bookshelves. They looked like something taken from medieval times, a single room lifted and taken hundreds of years to the future. The large books gathering dust on the shelves were probably older than those hundreds of years. With few personal details, each office was simply a mirror image of the other two. Grissom and Sara took the two seats, not so surprisingly, positioned in front of a large desk which Father Benjamin sat behind.

"I presume you're the man I spoke with on the phone?" he asked, leaning forward in his chair, hands folded neatly atop his desk.

"Yes. Gil Grissom," he said, shaking the priest's hand.

"And this is…your wife?" Benjamin Moore said, gesturing to Sara. Grissom felt a blush creep up his neck at the assumption.

"No, actually, this is Sara Sidle, my…" Oh how he wished he could say wife.

"…significant other," Sara supplied thoughtfully, reaching across to shake the priest's hand with a tight lipped smile.

"Nice to meet you both… As you mentioned on the phone, you were hoping I could perform a house blessing?" he asked, reclining in his chair like he had these conversations all the time. _And maybe he did_, Grissom thought.

"Yes. I'm sure this sounds…" He wanted to say 'insane', but quickly caught himself. "…strange, but we're trying to deal with a… haunting. And based on expert advice, we were suggested to consult with you over the matter of having our house blessed," Grissom said. "As soon as possible," he added.

"Well that should be no problem. I do believe the wedding that was scheduled for tomorrow was canceled. Bride got cold feet. It's too bad really," Father Benjamin said, more to himself than anything as he located his schedule for the upcoming week. "Is mid afternoon good? 3 o'clock?"

"Yea…Yes, that's perfect," Sara spoke up and Grissom nodded his agreement. They then exchanged information with Father Benjamin Moore about the situation and what the house blessing would consist of and other minute details. When Grissom and Sara left his office half an hour later, both felt confident that they were finally about to get a handle on their lives again.

_TBC_

**CSICSICSI**

**A/N: **The next chapter will be the last. I have had the ending of this story planned out since I started writing, so I'm hoping the final chapter will be up very soon. Thank you to those who have been reviewing! You guys are amazing! And I would love to hear what you think of this chapter! I really enjoyed writing the last half of it ;)


	46. Relief

**Disclaimer:** I do not own CSI. And honestly, I really don't think I want too after how much CBS has butchered it.

**A/N: **Wow, I can't believe that I worked on this for almost two years. This is my first completed multi-chapter story, I'm so happy! I needed to have it finished before I go on vacation, which is tomorrow. Thank you so much to everyone who has been following this story (reading and/or reviewing). And tons of thanks to everyone who favorited and/or put this story and/or me on their alerts list. I love you guys, fanfic (especially CSI) readers are awesome! :)

I know it may seem a bit like the ending was jumping the gun, but I've had this chapter planned out since I started writing this story.

**CSICSICSI**

It would be three o'clock in two hours, but Grissom and Sara were not home waiting for Father Benjamin to arrive. Sara had been fretful all day and Grissom suggested they get out of the house for awhile, just for a distraction, which was how they ended up at diner for a quick lunch. Halfway through the meal Sara voiced her concerns about the house blessing.

"Gil, do you really think that this is gonna work? I mean, think scientifically. It's a guy with a religious title who is just going to walk around the house with holy water and a cross and talk to the air and make everything better," Sara said. "It's not…backed by science."

"That's true, but is the situation at all scientific? Spirits and a world after death are things that are thought of solely based on religion. There is no evidence to support any of it because no one can come back from the dead. I agree, the idea of a house blessing and the process is a bit out there, but it's all we can do. I've never heard of any other way to deal with a haunted house. And to began with, a haunted house is far from scientific as well," Grissom said. He wanted to reassure her that everything would get back to normal soon, but he was to unsure of it all himself to try and convince her.

"I guess you're right," Sara sighed, pushing the food around on the plate in front of her. "Well, I did some research on house blessings. And one of the things it said was that in order for the blessing to be successful, the house's occupants would have to be strong believers that God can fix anything. And we both know that neither of us are big with religion," Sara said.

"It's not necessarily that I don't believe in God, but you can't ignore the studies of science that disprove the studies of the Bible," Grissom said. He already knew that Sara had given up her few religious beliefs the moment her mother had plunged a carving knife into her father's chest.

"Do you think we have enough faith for this to work?"

"Yes, I think we do…Even if it's just faith that everything will be okay," he said, reaching across the table to take her hand in his. "Sara," he said softly. She looked up from their joined hands. "It's going to work, okay?" While she was not one hundred percent certain, like Grissom appeared to be, she was reassured by his admission that he still harbored some belief in God.

When the doorbell rang at 3 o'clock, Sara practically ran to the door. The fact that the priest arrived precisely on time saved Grissom from Sara's anxious pacing.

"Thank you so much for coming, Father Benjamin," Grissom heard Sara say, her voice traveling down the hallway.

"There is no need to thank me, Ms. Sidle, I am simply welcoming God into your home," Father Benjamin said. Sara closed the front door, feeling a strong urge to roll her eyes but refraining. Grissom greeted Father Benjamin when Sara led him into the living right before she was drawn away again by the chime of the doorbell. This time it was Noreen and Steve.

"It's a relief that you guys could be here," Sara said, also taking them into the living room.

Steve and Noreen shook hands with Father Benjamin and then the priest began to explain what the house blessing would consist of. Noreen and Steve had been a part of multiple house blessings before, and therefore knew of what was to be expected. Before the blessing was to start, white candles, which the priest had brought, would be lit and placed in each room of the house. The candles were said to create a sense of peace throughout the home.

While candles were being set up in the rooms, Grissom took Sara's hand, retrieving his mother's rosary beads from his pocket. He placed a light kiss to her palm and then intertwined the fingers of his left hand with her right one. Using his other hand, Grissom wrapped the rosary beds around their joined hands.

The blessing was going to begin in the living room and move to each room of the house. With the candles in place, Father Benjamin retrieved a bottle of holy water and a crucifix from his bag. Noreen, Steve, Sara, and Grissom joined hands to form a small circle in the middle of the room. Father Benjamin then sprinkled holy water throughout the room whilst holding the crucifix in front of him to ward off the evil spirits and reciting a prayer to God asking him to bless the home and the people in it. Each room was then blessed in the same fashion and by the last room Sara and Grissom had the prayer ingrained in their heads. When all was quiet and the last room had been blessed, there was a new inviting warmth that seemed to fill the home, chasing away the uncertainty and fear that had lived there for so long.

"Do you smell that?" Sara asked and everyone took a sniff of the air.

"Roses?" Grissom commented.

"The scent of roses is a sign of a successful house blessing," Noreen informed them.

After a moment of basking in the new sense of warmth and openness of the house, everyone dispersed to blow out and collect the candles. Grissom trailed behind Sara, following her into their bedroom, and Sara blew out the candle on the dresser with a thoughtful look on her face.

"Penny for your thoughts?" Grissom asked. Sara turned to him and lazily draped her arms over his shoulders.  
"I was just thinking about how relieved I am that we have this house to ourselves again," she said. "I feel better not thinking that we have to look over our shoulders all the time."

"I'm happy it's done with," Grissom said, dipping his head to brush her lips with his. "Come on, let's go see everybody off," Grissom said, unwrapping her arms from his neck and tugging her to the door.

**CSICSICSI**

"Ya know, everyone has been wondering what's been up with you two lately. First word gets around that you guys are a couple and then you've barely been at work these past few weeks and now you're both taking the weekend off?" Brass questioned, he had only arrived at the townhouse a few minutes ago, greeted by Sara, who was less than thrilled that he decided to show up right then because she and Grissom were finishing up the packing for their weekend trip.

"Sara and I thought that it would be nice if we went away for a few days just to have some time to ourselves after everything that's been going on," Grissom explained. He handed Brass a heavy suitcase and then continued walking, expecting Brass to follow. "You can tell Catherine that she can feel free to interrogate us both on our current relationship once we get back, but I'm not guaranteeing any answers," Grissom said, placing the suitcase he was carrying in the back of his SUV parked in the driveway. Brass did the same.

"Catherine already has plans to harass you, I think I saw her writing out a question sheet the other day," Brass smirked. Sara came out of the house, tossing a duffle bag into the back of the car.

"Is that everything?" Grissom asked. Sara nodded and he slammed down the trunk door.

"We just have to lock up," she said.

"Jim, since you're here, may I offer you the honorary job of feeding my insects while we're gone?" Grissom asked, leaning back against the car's bumper. Brass mimicked his stance.

"Sure, I'll take care of your creepy bug friends," Brass said, his voice teasing. Sara returned a moment later, having locked the front door.

"Alright, we're ready to go," she announced.

"Have a nice time wherever you're going," Brass said, waving as Sara and Grissom got into their car. Once they drove away he turned back, getting into his own car and driving off.

Had anyone turned back to look at the house, with the shades of a window pulled back and clutched in invisible fists, they would've seen the blurred face of a woman watching as the two cars pulled away.

_**Fin.**_

**CSICSICSI**

**A/N: **Please review just for a last hurrah! ;D You guys are the greatest!


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